The Clone Plugin where  clone_user  is the MySQL user that performs the cloning operation. The user you select to perform the cloning operation can be any MySQL user with the  BACKUP_ADMIN  privilege on *.*. The following example demonstrates cloning data locally: mysql> CLONE LOCAL DATA DIRECTORY = ’ /path/to/clone_dir ’; where  /path/to/clone_dir  is the full path of the local directory that data is cloned to. An absolute path is required, and the specified directory (“ clone_dir ” ) must not exist, but the specified path must be an existent path. The MySQL server must have the necessary write access to create the directory. Note A local cloning operation does not support cloning of user-created tables or tablespaces that reside outside of the data directory. Attempting to clone such tables or tablespaces causes the following error:  ERROR 1086 (HY000): File ’ /path/to/tablespace_name.ibd ’ already exists . Cloning a tablespace with the same path as the source tablespace would cause a conflict and is therefore prohibited. All other user-created  InnoDB  tables and tablespaces, the  InnoDB  system tablespace, redo logs, and undo tablespaces are cloned to the specified directory. If desired, you can start the MySQL server on the cloned directory after the cloning operation is complete. shell> mysqld_safe --datadir= clone_dir where  clone_dir  is the directory that data was cloned to. For information about monitoring cloning operation status and progress, see Section 5.6.7.9, “Monitoring Cloning Operations” . 5.6.7.3 Cloning Remote Data The clone plugin supports the following syntax for cloning remote data; that is, cloning data from a remote MySQL server instance (the donor) and transferring it to the MySQL instance where the cloning operation was initiated (the recipient). CLONE INSTANCE FROM ’ user ’@’ host ’: port IDENTIFIED BY ’ password ’ [DATA DIRECTORY [=] ’ clone_dir ’] [REQUIRE [NO] SSL]; where: • user  is the clone user on the donor MySQL server instance. • password  is the  user  password. • host  is the  hostname  address of the donor MySQL server instance. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address format is not supported. An alias to the IPv6 address can be used instead. An IPv4 address can be used as is. • port  is the  port  number of the donor MySQL server instance. (The X Protocol port specified by mysqlx_port  is not supported. Connecting to the donor MySQL server instance through MySQL Router is also not supported.) • DATA DIRECTORY [=] ’ clone_dir ’  is an optional clause used to specify a directory on the recipient for the data you are cloning. Use this option if you do not want to remove existing data in the recipient 1113