How to clone an Oracle Home (10g)

If you need to install a V10 (or above) environment and already have the version and patches somewhere else (but the same OS and level), instead of going through an install you can simply clone an existing ORACLE_HOME.

Rather than re-installing Oracle 10g and it's associated patches each time, it is possible to perform a clone of an exisiting Oracle Home.


1. Take a "tar" of the existing Oracle Home. Using tar will ensure that file permissions and symbolic links (internal to the Oracle Home) are maintained.
tar -cvf oracle_home.tar $ORACLE_HOME
2. Extract oracle_home.tar to the required location (same or different server)
3. Run the clone utility
cd $ORACLE_HOME/clone/bin
perl clone.pl ORACLE_HOME="" ORACLE_HOME_NAME=""

This also saves having to copy the install media onto a server if it's at a remote location.

Note - I haven't tested this, these are instructions from a colleague.