You can clone a software channel to capture the state of its packages and errata at a given point. Clone channels are useful for providing a stable reference base when developing and testing server systems before deployment. Clone channels are not recommended for deployed systems as they might be exposed to security vulnerabilities.

You can use the Spacewalk web interface to clone one channel at a time. If you want to clone a base channel and all of its child channels in one go, consider using the spacecmd or spacewalk-clone-by-date commands. If you want to clone a channel to preserve its state at a given date, use the spacewalk-clone-by-date command.

The spacewalk-manage-channel-lifecycle command allows you to manage the life cycles of software channels from development, through testing to production. Oracle recommends using spacewalk-manage-channel-lifecycle in preference to spacewalk-clone-by-date as it supports archiving, roll back, and is designed for repetitive use. See Section 2.8, “Managing Channel Life Cycles”.