Nithyananthan,
Thank you much for your input. I did check the Oracle os account (and password) and its group on the CLONE host (where the clone database to be on) and they are exactly the same as those on the SOURCE host (where the source database is running). Both Oracle account ID and group ID on the CLONE host are also the same as those on the SOURCE host.
I incorrectly said in my last message that I could do the clone operation locally by running SMO GUI on the CLONE machine. This is not true, it failed both cases when I run SMO GUI on SOURCE host or CLONE host (I however could create a clone database on the SOURCE machine when running SMO GUI on SOURCE).
I would appreciate any other suggestions.
By the way, since the error message 'ORA-01031: insufficient privileges was received when executing command SQL: [STARTUP NOMOUNT EXCLUSIVE PFILE=/home/oracle2/102/dbs/initdentoncl.ora;] which means a connection to Oracle has been established using the Oracle os account given. SMO must have used the sysdba account given in the profile to connect to Oracle to issue STARTUP NOMOUNT but this is a sysdba account and should have the right privileges (unless the password file for the clone database was not created correctly by SMO). Is there a way we can tell SMO not to delete the clone database when it failed to start it up?
Thanks,
JS