Oracle supports cloning and users can easily clone existing Oracle installations. But you need to understand why cloning is useful. This presentation covers following Topics. When cloning useful Different methods of Cloning How to perform Cloning Summary Q&A

1. Install Oracle Binaries or Clone Oracle Home
Satishbabu Gunukula, Oracle ACE
• 18+ Years of Experience in Database Technologies and
specialized in high availability solutions.
• Masters Degree in Computer Applications
• Written articles for major publications
• Oracle Certified Professional Oracle 8i,9i,10g
• Oracle Certified Expert Oracle 10g RAC
http://www.oracleracexpert.com

2. Program Agenda
• Overview of Cloning
• When Cloning useful
• Methods of Cloning
• How is Cloning done
– Copy source Oracle Installation
– Clone Oracle Installation
• Summary
• Q& A

3. Overview of Cloning
• Starting from 10g onwards, Oracle supports cloning and users can
easily clone existing Oracle installations
• Cloning is a process of copying an existing installation to a different
server or location. Cloning is similar to an Oracle installation except
Oracle universal installation performs the actions in a special mode
called “clone mode”.
• The source and destination servers should have same configuration
and packages installed in order Oracle cloning to work
• The cloning process works by copying all files from the source Oracle
home to the destination Oracle home, and files which are not part of
the source instance will not be copied to the destination location

4. When Cloning useful
When it comes to a server upgrade or migration, database
administrators will have to question whether to clone or
install the Oracle binaries
– If you need to create a new installation with many patches, then
cloning enables you to create a new installation with all patches
applied to it in one step and eliminate manual installation.
– To create an installation that is the same as Production for
Development/Testing purpose
– If you need to create Oracle home and deploy it to many hosts
– If you need to quickly deploy an instance and the applications

5. Methods of Cloning
Below methods available to clone the Oracle installation
– Clone using “perl clone.pl” : In this method you need to install DB
Console so that the required Perl files will be installed in
$ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin.
– Clone using “runInstaller” : In this method you need to install DB
Console
– Clone using “runInstaller in silent” mode: In this method you will
be using same “runInstaller” in non-interactive mode

6. How is Cloning done
Cloning is a two-step process, in the first step you will copy
Oracle installation from source to destination and in second
step you will run Oracle Universal Installer to clone the
installation on the destination.
Step 1: Copy source Oracle Installation
Step 2: Clone Oracle Installation

7. Copy source Oracle Installation
• Before you make a copy of the existing installation, the databases,
listeners and agents, etc running on the server should be shut down
on the source installation.
• The source Oracle home will have configuration/trace/log files related
to the environment such as udump, bdump, alert.log , init.ora,
listener.ora, tnsnames.ora, etc.
• When you clone the Oracle home, the destination will have all source
configuration files. If your destination will have different
database/instances then your need to exclude those files during copy
or remove the files after copy.
• If your requirement is server migration and then no need to exclude
those files.

8. Copy source Oracle Installation
Below are the lists of few files that may need to exclude
during the cloning process, in case your destination will be
different.
• Database related files (Data/tmp files, log files, Control files…etc)
• SQL*Net Files
– $ORACLE_HOME/listener.ora
– $ORACLE_HOME/tnsnames.ora
– $ORACLE_HOME/sqlnet.ora
• DB related directories $ORACLE_HOME/dbs ( init.ora,spfile.ora,orapwd)
– $ORACLE_HOME/admin (trace, alert, core files…etc)
– $ORACLE_BASE/diag (trace, alert, core, incident files…etc)
– $ORACLE_HOME/oc4j/j2ee/OC4J_DBConsole__ (Enterprise manager/db console)
– $ORACLE_HOME/hs/admin/ (Heterogeneous files)

9. Copy source Oracle Installation
Things to note during the copy
– Oracle 11g has permissions are more restrictive files and exclude
the below files during the copy or tar
• $ORACLE_HOME/bin/nmo
• $ORACLE_HOME/bin/nmb
• $ORACLE_HOME/bin/nmhs
– From 11g and higher, add these files to the exclusion list, they’ll be
created by root.sh script later in the cloning process.
– If any other products are installed/configured but not required at
destination, then you need to exclude those files as well.

10. Copy source Oracle Installation
On Source Server : Copy Oracle Installation using “tar”
Note: You can also use “cp”, “scp” or any other copy tools.
– Create a exclude list
– Create a tar file by excluding files or directories which are not
required using below command

11. Copy source Oracle Installation
On Destination Server:
– Create directory structure and set the environment variables such
as ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_BASE, etc.
– Copy the tar file to destination server and unpack.

12. Clone Oracle Installation
On Destination Server: Pre-requisites
– Make sure that ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_BASE environment
variables are set
– The /etc/oraInst.loc file must exists and if not exists create
manually
– If you have copied oracle Inventory, then you will receive a
message that the inventory already exists. Either exclude the
Oracle Inventory during the copy of detach the Oracle home

13. Clone using “perl clone.pl”
Here is the syntax

14. Clone using runInstaller
Here is the Syntax

15. Clone using “runInstaller in silent”
Here is the Syntax

16. Clone Oracle Installation
On Destination Server: Post-clone tasks
• To complete the cone you should log in as “root” and run
$ORACLE_HOME/root.sh
– # /home/oracle/product/11.2.0.4/dbhome_1/root.sh
• In Unix & Linux platforms run “changePerm.sh” for version
10g and older
– #/home/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/install/changePerm.sh
– o /home/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1

17. Summary
• Benefits of Cloning
• Methods available to Clone
• Known Common Issues

18. Questions & Answers