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Clone Parent Management

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Risk Level: Low (generally tolerable level of risk)
Rule ID: OCI-FileStorage-007

To optimize storage costs, ensure that OCI clone parent file systems without any attached child clones (i.e., unused clone parent file systems) are regularly reviewed and removed from your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account.

Cost
optimisation

Regularly auditing your OCI File Storage environment is essential for effective cost management. Any file system that previously served as a clone parent but no longer has active clones attached represents an unnecessary expense. Since the clones are already detached, deleting the original parent file system will not impact them. Detached clones are independent, fully self-contained file systems. These unused systems consume valuable storage space and incur costs without providing any active cloning utility. By implementing a routine process to identify and decommission detached or orphaned clone parents, you can ensure that you’re paying only for active, necessary data, resulting in significant storage cost optimization.

Audit

To determine if there are unused clone parent file systems in your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account, perform the following operations:

Using OCI Console

  1. Sign in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account.

  2. Navigate to File Storage console available at https://cloud.oracle.com/fss/.

  3. In the left navigation panel, choose File Systems, and select an OCI compartment from the Compartment dropdown menu, to list the file systems provisioned in that compartment.

  4. Click on the name (link) of the file system that you want to examine, listed in the Name column.

  5. Select the File System Information tab, and check the Descendants and Clone attached status attribute values listed in the Clones section to determine whether the selected file system is a clone parent without any attached child clones (i.e., an unused clone parent file system). If Descendants is set to True and Clone attached status is Detached, the selected OCI clone parent file system is considered unused.

Using OCI CLI

  1. Run iam compartment list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with output query filters to list the ID of each compartment available in your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account:

    oci iam compartment list
	--all
	--include-root
	--query 'data[]."id"'

  2. The command output should return the requested OCI compartment identifiers (OCIDs):

    [
	"ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd",
	"ocid1.compartment.oc1..abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd"
]

  3. Run fs file-system list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with the ID of the OCI compartment that you want to examine as the identifier parameter, to list the ID of each File Storage system provisioned in the selected OCI compartment:

    oci fs file-system list
	--compartment-id 'ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd'
	--availability-domain 'ABCD:AP-SYDNEY-1-AD-1'
	--all
	--query 'data[]."id"'

  4. The command output should return the requested file system IDs:

    [
	"ocid1.filesystem.oc1.ap_sydney_1.aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd",
	"ocid1.filesystem.oc1.ap_sydney_1.aaaabbbbccccddddabcdabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234"
]

  5. Run fs file-system get command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to determine whether the selected OCI file system is a clone parent without any attached child clones (i.e., an unused clone parent file system):

    oci fs file-system get
	--file-system-id 'ocid1.filesystem.oc1.ap_sydney_1.aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd'
	--query 'data.{"is-clone-parent":"is-clone-parent","clone-attach-status":"clone-attach-status"}'

  6. The command output should return the clone configuration information available for the selected file system. The "is-clone-parent" property indicates whether the file system is a clone parent and "clone-attach-status" indicates whether any clone is currently attached to the parent file system:

    {
	"is-clone-parent": true,
	"clone-attach-status": "DETACHED"
}

    If the fs file-system get command output returns true for "is-clone-parent" and "DETACHED" for "clone-attach-status", as shown in the example above, the selected OCI file system is considered an unused clone parent (a clone parent without any attached child clones).

Remediation / Resolution

To avoids unnecessary storage usage and simplifies management. To remove unused OCI clone parent file systems from your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account, perform the following operations:

Using OCI Console

  1. Sign in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account.

  2. Navigate to File Storage console available at https://cloud.oracle.com/fss/.

  3. In the left navigation panel, choose File Systems, and select an OCI compartment from the Compartment dropdown menu, to list the file systems provisioned in that compartment.

  4. Click on the name (link) of the unused file system that you want to remove, listed in the Name column.

  5. Before you delete the unused file system, verify that no remaining export resources still reference it. In the left navigation panel, under Resources, choose Exports, select all the export resources, and choose Delete. Select Delete for confirmation.

  6. Once the export resources are removed, choose Delete from the page top menu to remove the unused clone parent file system from your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account. Select Delete for confirmation.

Using OCI CLI

  1. Before you delete the unused file system, verify that no remaining export resources still reference it. Run fs export delete command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to delete the export resources associated with the file system that you want to remove:

    oci fs export delete
	--export-id 'ocid1.export.oc1.ap_sydney_1.aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd'

  2. Type Y and press Enter for confirmation:

    Are you sure you want to delete this resource? [y/N]: Y

  3. Run fs file-system delete command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to remove the unused clone parent file system specified by the --file-system-id parameter from your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) account:

    oci fs file-system delete
	--file-system-id 'ocid1.filesystem.oc1.ap_sydney_1.aaaabbbbccccddddabcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd'

  4. Type Y and press Enter for removal confirmation:

    Are you sure you want to delete this resource? [y/N]: Y

References

Publication date Nov 12, 2025

Related OCI-FileStorage rules