How to solve ORA-17627: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified during clone from active database

During an attempt to clone from active database, the following error was thrown:

RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of Duplicate Db command at 07/21/2015 10:06:15
RMAN-05501: aborting duplication of target database
RMAN-03015: error occurred in stored script Memory Script
RMAN-03009: failure of backup command on c1 channel at 07/21/2015 10:06:15
ORA-17629: Cannot connect to the remote database server
ORA-17627: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified
ORA-17629: Cannot connect to the remote database server

This seems pretty obvious, since the error stack states that there is a connection problem, but it's easy to overlook if you run your command from the destination server, and like in my case, checked that all connections work, that the passwords are identical etc etc.

The solution is simply to add the source and the destination connect descriptor in the $TNS_ADMIN/tnsnames.ora files on both the source and auxiliary server.


See my other article on active database cloning for a more detailed description of the required setup.