TIP 106# : Quick tips on Cloning Oracle

As Oracle clone is one of the quickest way to create new software binaries with all the patches from a source database and it comes handy specially when Oracle software installation media is not available. In this post, I am trying to remind myself and readers some tips about Oracle clone which worth to know:

Cloning is not cross platform
Clone usually is done in 2 phases - prepare_clone.pl in source and clone.pl in target
Clone does take care of inventory and relink so further patches can be applied on the new cloned home
For Oracle database and CRS, prepare_clone.pl is not required
ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_HOME_NAME should be specified when clone.pl is run, in 11g, ORACLE_BASE should be specified also
If Oracle inventory is not in default location, before running clone.pl, edit cs.properties and add 

-ignoreSysPrereqs -invPtrLoc <oraInst_path>/oraInst.loc

Make sure to run root.sh after clone.pl is completed

You may need to create oraInst.loc file manually on target if the file does not exists, to do so, just create a file in default location 
   with inventory_loc=<oraInventory_path>

The alternative of running clone.pl is to use runInstaller for cloning, the format would be like this : 

./runInstaller -clone -silent -ignorePreReq ORACLE_HOME="" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="" ORACLE_BASE="" 

(in Windows it would be setup.exe)

If the server has more than one perl installed, it is recommended to set PERL5LIB 

If clone is done on target server which has inventory and the cloned ORACLE_HOME has already been used at somepoint,

first ORACLE_HOME needs to be de-attached using this command : ./runInstaller -detachHome ORACLE_HOME=

This is why it is recommended to clone in brand new directory to avoid any issue.

Clone log in target is created in $ORACLE_HOME/clone/logs

Enjoy cloning!