Can I use Xtrabackup to clone an existing replica?

Suppose I have a master and a replica already in production, and I want to create a second replica of the master (not chained). I’d like to do this during production hours, so running a backup against the master instance is off the table. I can currently do this by shutting down the replica and copying all the data files over to the new replica, then using the info in the original replica’s master.info file to start replication on the new replica. If I want to do this without shutting down the first replica, is there a way I can clone it using Xtrabackup and then somehow retrieve the required start positions to start the I/O thread on the new replica without duplicating or losing any transactions?

Thanks!

You don’t have to shutdown your replica to take a backup. If all your tables are Innodb (except for system tables) then you should not worry.

[url]How to setup a slave for replication in 6 simple steps with Percona XtraBackup

[url]Percona XtraBackup