B Cloning an Oracle Home

Cloning an Oracle home involves creating a copy of the Oracle home and then configuring it for a new environment. If you perform multiple Oracle Database installations, then you may use this method 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 is to be cloned has had patches applied to it. When you clone this Oracle home, the new Oracle home has the patch updates as well.

To clone an Oracle home:

Verify that the installation of Oracle Database to be cloned is successful.

You can do this by reviewing the installActionsdate_time.log file for the installation session, which is normally located in the /orainventory_location/logs directory.

If you installed patches, then you can check their status by running the following commands:
```
$ $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch ORACLE_HOME=ORACLE_HOME_using_patch
$ $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch opatch lsinventory
```
Stop all processes related to the Oracle home. Refer to the "Removing Oracle Software" section for more information on stopping the processes for an Oracle home.
Create a ZIP file with the Oracle home (but not Oracle base) directory.

For example, if the source Oracle installation is in the /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1 directory, then zip the db_1 directory by using the following command:
```
# zip -r db_1.zip /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
```
Leave out the admin, flash_recovery_area, and oradata directories that are in the 10.2.0 directory. These directories are created in the target installation, when you create a new database.
Copy the ZIP file to the root directory of the target computer.
Extract the ZIP file contents by using the following command:
```
# unzip -d / db_1.zip
```
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each computer where the Oracle home must be cloned, unless the Oracle home is on a shared storage device.
On the target computer, change directory to the unzipped Oracle home directory, and remove all the .ora (*.ora) files present in the unzipped $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory.
From the $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin directory, run Oracle Universal Installer in clone mode for the unzipped Oracle home. Use the following syntax:
```
$ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -clone ORACLE_HOME="target location" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="unique_name_on node" [-responseFile full_directory_path]
```
For example:
```
$ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin/runInstaller -silent -clone ORACLE_HOME="/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="db_1"
```
The -responseFile parameter is optional. You can supply clone-time parameters on the command line or by using the response file named on the command line.

Oracle Universal Installer starts, and then records the cloning actions in the cloneActionstimestamp.log file. This log file is normally located in the /orainventory_location/logs directory.
To create a new database for the cloned Oracle home, run Database Configuration Assistant as follows:
```
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ ./dbca
```
To configure connection information for the new database, run Net Configuration Assistant.
```
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ ./netca
```