Cloning is the process of copying an existing Oracle Clusterware installation to a different location and then updating the copied installation to work in the new environment. Changes made by one-off patches applied on the source Oracle Grid Infrastructure home are also present after cloning. During cloning, you run a script that replays the actions that installed the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

Cloning requires that you start with a successfully installed Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. You use this home as the basis for implementing a script that extends the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to create a cluster based on the original Grid home.

Manually creating the cloning script can be error prone because you prepare the script without interactive checks to validate your input. Despite this, the initial effort is worthwhile for scenarios where you run a single script to configure tens or even hundreds of clusters. If you have only one cluster to install, then you should use the traditional, automated and interactive installation methods, such as Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) or the Provisioning Pack feature of Oracle Enterprise Manager.

The Provisioning Pack feature of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control provides a framework that automates the provisioning of nodes and clusters. For data centers with many clusters, the investment in creating a cloning procedure to provision new clusters and new nodes to existing clusters is worth the effort.

The following list describes some situations in which cloning is useful:

• Cloning prepares an Oracle Grid Infrastructure home once and deploys it to many hosts simultaneously. You can complete the installation in silent mode, as a noninteractive process. You do not need to use a graphical user interface (GUI) console, and you can perform cloning from a Secure Shell (SSH) terminal session, if required.

• Cloning enables you to create an installation (copy of a production, test, or development installation) with all patches applied to it in a single step. Once you have performed the base installation and applied all patch sets and patches on the source system, cloning performs all of these individual steps as a single procedure. This is in contrast to going through the installation process to perform the separate steps to install, configure, and patch the installation on each node in the cluster.

• Installing Oracle Clusterware by cloning is a quick process. For example, cloning an Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to a cluster with more than two nodes requires a few minutes to install the Oracle software, plus a few minutes more for each node (approximately the amount of time it takes to run the root.sh script).

• Cloning provides a guaranteed method of accurately repeating the same Oracle Clusterware installation on multiple clusters.

A cloned installation acts the same as its source installation. For example, you can remove the cloned Oracle Grid Infrastructure home using OUI or patch it using OPatch. You can also use the cloned Oracle Grid Infrastructure home as the source for another cloning operation. You can create a cloned copy of a test, development, or production installation by using the command-line cloning scripts.

The default cloning procedure is adequate for most cases. However, you can also customize some aspects of cloning, such as specifying custom port assignments or preserving custom settings.

For example, you can specify a custom port for the listener, as follows:

$ export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/12.1.0/grid
$ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/srvctl modify listener -endpoints tcp:12345

The cloning process works by copying all of the files from the source Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to the destination Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. You can clone either a local (non-shared) or shared Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. Thus, any files used by the source instance that are located outside the source Oracle Grid Infrastructure home's directory structure are not copied to the destination location.

The size of the binary files at the source and the destination may differ because these files are relinked as part of the cloning operation, and the operating system patch levels may also differ between these two locations. Additionally, the number of files in the cloned home would increase because several files copied from the source, specifically those being instantiated, are backed up as part of the clone operation.

To prepare the source Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to be cloned, create a copy of an installed Oracle Grid Infrastructure home and then use it to perform the cloning procedure on other nodes. Use the following step-by-step procedure to prepare the copy of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home:

• Step 1: Install Oracle Clusterware

• Step 2: Shut Down Running Software

• Step 3: Create a Copy of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Home

This section explains how to create a cluster by cloning a successfully installed Oracle Clusterware environment and copying it to the nodes on the destination cluster. The procedures in this section describe how to use cloning for Linux, UNIX, and Windows systems. OCR and voting files are not shared between the two clusters after you successfully create a cluster from a clone.

For example, you can use cloning to quickly duplicate a successfully installed Oracle Clusterware environment to create a cluster. Figure 8-1 shows the result of a cloning procedure in which the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home on Node 1 has been cloned to Node 2 and Node 3 on Cluster 2, making Cluster 2 a new two-node cluster.

The steps to create a cluster through cloning are as follows:

• Step 1: Prepare the New Cluster Nodes

• Step 2: Deploy the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Home on the Destination Nodes

• Step 3: Run the clone.pl Script on Each Destination Node

• Step 4: Launch the Configuration Wizard

$ perl clone.pl -silent ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle ORACLE_HOME=
/u01/app/12.2/grid ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraHome1Grid
INVENTORY_LOCATION=/u01/app/oraInventory LOCAL_NODE=node1 CRS=TRUE

C:\>perl clone.pl ORACLE_BASE=D:\u01\app\grid ORACLE_HOME=D:\u01\app\grid\12.2
ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraHome1Grid ORACLE_HOME_USER=Oracle_home_user_name
"LOCAL_NODE=node1" CRS=TRUE

C:\>perl clone.pl ORACLE_BASE=D:\u01\app\grid ORACLE_HOME=D:\u01\app\grid\12.2
ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraHome1Grid ORACLE_HOME_USER=Oracle_home_user_name 
"LOCAL_NODE=node1" CRS=TRUE PERFORM_PARTITION_TASKS=FALSE

#!/bin/sh
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
GRID_HOME=/u01/app/12.1/grid
THIS_NODE=`hostname -s`

E01=ORACLE_BASE=${ORACLE_BASE}
E02=ORACLE_HOME=${GRID_HOME}
E03=ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraGridHome1
E04=INVENTORY_LOCATION=${ORACLE_BASE}/../oraInventory

#C00="-debug"

C01="CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"
C02="LOCAL_NODE=$THIS_NODE"

perl ${GRID_HOME}/clone/bin/clone.pl -silent $E01 $E02 $E03 $E04 $C01 $C02 CRS=TRUE

$ Oracle_home/crs/config/config.sh

C:\>Oracle_home\crs\config\config.bat

$ Oracle_home/crs/config/config.sh -silent -responseFile file_name

C:\>Oracle_home\crs\config\config.bat -silent -responseFile file_name

You can also use cloning to add nodes to a cluster.

1. Deploy the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home on Node 2, as described in "Step 2: Deploy the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Home on the Destination Nodes".

   Use the tar utility to create an archive of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home on the Node 1 and copy it to Node 2. If the location of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home on Node 1 is $ORACLE_HOME, then you must use this same directory as the destination location on Node 2.

2. Run the clone.pl script located in the Grid_home/clone/bin directory on Node 2.

   See Also:

   Table 8-1 for more information about the parameters used in the clone.pl script

   The following example is for Linux or UNIX systems:

   $ perl clone.pl ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/12.1/grid ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraHome1Grid
     ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle "'CLUSTER_NODES={node1, node2}'"
     "'LOCAL_NODE=node2'" CRS=TRUE INVENTORY_LOCATION=/u01/app/oraInventory
   

   If you are prompted to run root.sh, then ignore the prompt and proceed to the next step.

   The following example is for Windows systems:

   C:\>perl clone.pl ORACLE_BASE=D:\u01\app\grid ORACLE_HOME=D:\u01\app\grid\12.1.0
     ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraHome1Grid '"CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"'
     '"LOCAL_NODE=node2"' CRS=TRUE

   Note:

   In the preceding command, ORACLE_HOME_NAME is required when cloning a node to add a node. You can obtain the correct value from node you are cloning from that node's registry, as follows:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\oracle\KEY_OraCRs12c_home1

   Look for the ORACLE_HOME_NAME parameter key to obtain the value. If the value for the ORACLE_HOME_NAME parameter in the preceding command does not match that of the node you are cloning, then adding the new node will fail.

3. This step does not apply to Windows.

   In the Central Inventory directory on Node 2, run the orainstRoot.sh script as root. This script populates the /etc/oraInst.loc directory with the location of the central inventory. For example:

   [root@node2 root]# /opt/oracle/oraInventory/orainstRoot.sh
   

   You can run the script on more than one destination node simultaneously.

4. Run the addnode.sh (addnode.bat on Windows) script, located in the Grid_home/addnode directory, on Node 1, as follows:

   $ addnode.sh -silent -noCopy "CLUSTER_NEW_NODES={node2}" "CLUSTER_NEW_VIRTUAL_HOSTNAMES={node2-vip}"
       "CLUSTER_NEW_NODE_ROLES={HUB}"

   Note:

   • Because you already ran the clone.pl script on Node 2, this step only updates the inventories on the node and instantiates scripts on the local node.

   • If you use the -noCopy option with the addnode.sh script, then a copy of the password file may not exist on Node 2, in which case you must copy a correct password file to Node 2.

   • The addnode.sh script runs the cluvfy stage -pre nodeadd verification.

   • Use the CLUSTER_NEW_NODE_ROLES parameter to indicate, in an Oracle Flex Cluster, whether the node you are adding is a Hub Node or a Leaf Node.

   You can add multiple nodes, as follows:

   $ addnode.sh -silent -noCopy "CLUSTER_NEW_NODES={node2,node3,node4}"
     "CLUSTER_NEW_VIRTUAL_HOSTNAMES={node2-vip,node3-vip,}"
     "CLUSTER_NEW_NODE_ROLES={HUB,HUB,LEAF}"
   

   In the preceding syntax example, Node 4 is designated as a Leaf Node and does not require that a VIP be included.

5. Copy the following files from Node 1, on which you ran addnode.sh, to Node 2:

   Grid_home/crs/install/crsconfig_addparams
   Grid_home/crs/install/crsconfig_params
   Grid_home/gpnp

6. On Node 2, run the Grid_home/root.sh script.

   Note:

   • Ensure that you extend any database homes before you run the root.sh or gridconfig.bat scripts.

   • The cluster in this example has only two nodes. When you add multiple nodes to a cluster, you can run root.sh concurrently on all of the nodes.

   The following example is for a Linux or UNIX system. On Node 2, run the following command:

   [root@node2 root]# Grid_home/root.sh
   

   The root.sh script automatically configures the virtual IP (VIP) resources in the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR).

   On Windows, run the following command on Node 2:

   C:\>Grid_home\crs\config\gridconfig.bat
   

7. Run the following cluster verification utility (CVU) command on Node 1:

   $ cluvfy stage -post nodeadd -n destination_node_name [-verbose]