Cloning an Oracle Database Home

Cloning an Oracle home involves creating a copy of the Oracle home and then configuring it for a new environment.

If you are performing multiple Oracle Database installations, then you may want to use cloning to create each Oracle home, because copying files from an existing Oracle Database installation takes less time than creating a new version of them. This method is also useful if the Oracle home that you are cloning has had patches applied to it. When you clone the Oracle home, the new Oracle home has the patch updates.

Perform these steps to clone an Oracle home.

Note:

During cloning, Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) prompts you to run scripts that require root privileges.

1. Verify that the installation of Oracle Database that you want clone is successful.

   You can do this by reviewing the installActionsdate_time.log file for the installation session, which is typically located in the /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory/logs directory.

   If you install patches, then check their status using the following:

   $ cd $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch

   Include $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch in $PATH

   $ opatch lsinventory

2. Stop all processes related to the Oracle home.
3. Create a ZIP or TAR file with the Oracle home (but not the Oracle base) directory.

   For example, if the source Oracle installation is in the path /u01/app/oracle/product/18.0.0/dbhome_1, then you zip the dbhome_1 directory by using the following command:

   # zip -r dbhome_1.zip /u01/app/oracle/product/18.0.0/dbhome_1

   You can also use the TAR command. For example:

   # tar -cvf dbhome_1.tar /u01/app/oracle/product/18.0.0/dbhome_1

   Do not include the admin, fast_recovery_area, and oradata directories that are under the Oracle base directory. These directories are created in the target installation later, when you create a new database there.

4. Copy the ZIP or TAR file to the root directory of the target computer. If you use File Transfer Protocol (FTP), then transfer the ZIP or TAR file in binary mode only.
5. Extract the ZIP or TAR file content using the following command:

   # unzip -d / dbhome_1.zip
   # tar -xvf dbhome_1.tar

6. If necessary, change the ownership of the Oracle Database home to the Oracle Database installation owner user (oracle) belonging to the Oracle Inventory group (oinstall).

   # chown -R oracle:oinstall /u01/app/oracle/product/18.0.0/dbhome_1

7. On the target computer, change the directory to the unzipped Oracle home directory, and remove all the .ora (*.ora) files present in the unzipped $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory.
8. Delete unnecessary files from the unzipped Oracle home directory.

   The unzipped Oracle home directory contains files that are relevant only to the source Oracle home. The following example shows how to remove these unnecessary files from the unzipped Oracle home directory:

   Remove the .ora files from the network/admin directory, and remove the old database entries from the dbs directory.

   # cd $ORACLE_HOME
   # rm -rf network/admin/*.ora
   # rm dbs/old_database_entries
   

9. From the $ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin directory, run the clone.pl file for the unzipped Oracle home.

   Use the following syntax (you can also include one or more of the extended Oracle Database groups in the syntax):

   $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl $ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin/clone.pl ORACLE_BASE="target_oracle_base" ORACLE_HOME="target_oracle_home" OSDBA_GROUP=OSDBA_privileged_group OSOPER_GROUP=OSOPER_privileged_group OSBACKUPDBA_GROUP=OSBACKUPDBA_privileged_group OSDGDBA_GROUP=OSDGDBA_privileged_group OSKMDBA_GROUP=OSKMDBA_privileged_group OSRACDBA_GROUP=OSRACDBA_privileged_group -defaultHomeName

   For example:

   $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl $ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin/clone.pl ORACLE_BASE="/u01/app/oracle" ORACLE_HOME="/u01/app/oracle/product/18.0.0/dbhome_1"
   OSDBA_GROUP=dba OSOPER_GROUP=oper OSBACKUPDBA_GROUP=backupdba OSDGDBA_GROUP=dgdba OSKMDBA_GROUP=kmdba OSRACDBA_GROUP=racdba -defaultHomeName

   Note:

   • In this command, if you do not provide the parameters for the operating system groups, then clone.pl uses the operating system group values from the source home.

   • Run the $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl $ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin/clone.pl -help command for more information about the command option flags.

   • The clone.pl script is deprecated in Oracle Database 19c and can be removed in a future release. Hence, Oracle recommends that you use the software-only installation option, available in the database installer, instead of clone.pl to clone your database.

   OUI starts, and then records the cloning actions in the cloneActionstimestamp.log file. This log file is typically located in /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory/logs directory.
10. Use the following commands to run Net Configuration Assistant to configure the connection information for the new database:

    $ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
    $ ./netca

11. Use the following commands to run Database Configuration Assistant to create a new Oracle Database for the newly-cloned oracle home:

    $ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
    $ ./dbca