virt-clone (1)

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NAME

virt-clone - clone existing virtual machine images

SYNOPSIS

virt-clone []...

DESCRIPTION

virt-clone is a command line tool for cloning existing virtual machine images using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. It will copy the disk images of any existing virtual machine, and define a new guest with an identical virtual hardware configuration. Elements which require uniqueness will be updated to avoid a clash between old and new guests.

By default, virt-clone will show an error if the necessary information to clone the guest is not provided. The --auto-clone option will generate all needed input, aside from the source guest to clone.

Please note, virt-clone does not change anything _inside_ the guest

it only duplicates disks and does host side changes. So things like changing passwords, changing static address, etc are outside the scope of this tool. For these types of changes, please see virt-sysprep.

GENERAL OPTIONS

Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --original or --original-xml (to specify the guest to clone), --name, and appropriate storage options via -file.

--connect

URI

Connect to a non-default hypervisor. See virt-install(1) for details

-o

ORIGINAL_GUEST

--original

ORIGINAL_GUEST

Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut off or paused since it is not possible to safely clone active guests at this time.

--original-xml

ORIGINAL_XML

Libvirt guest xml file to use as the original guest. The guest does not need to be defined on the libvirt connection. This takes the place of the "--original" parameter.

--auto-clone

Generate a new guest name, and paths for new storage.

An example or possible generated output:

  Original name        : MyVM
  Generated clone name : MyVM-clone

  Original disk path   : /home/user/foobar.img
  Generated disk path  : /home/user/foobar-clone.img

If generated names collide with existing VMs or storage, a number is appended, such as foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.

-n

NAME

--name

NAME

Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique amongst all guests known to the hypervisor connection, including those not currently active.

-u

UUID

--uuid

UUID

UUID

for the guest; if none is given a random

UUID

will be generated. If you specify

UUID,

you should use a 32-digit hexadecimal number.

UUID

are intended to be unique across the entire data center, and indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually specifying a

UUID

-f

DISKFILE

--file

DISKFILE

Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the backing store for the new guest's virtual disk. If the original guest has multiple disks, this parameter must be repeated multiple times, once per disk in the original virtual machine.

--force-copy

TARGET

Force cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By default, "virt-clone" will skip certain disks, such as those marked 'readonly' or 'shareable'.

--nonsparse

Fully allocate the new storage if the path being cloned is a sparse file. See virt-install(1) for more details on sparse vs. nonsparse.

--preserve-data

No storage is cloned: disk images specific by --file are preserved as is, and referenced in the new clone

XML.

This is useful if you want to clone a

VM XML

template, but not the storage contents.

--reflink

When --reflink is specified, perform a lightweight copy. This is much faster if source images and destination images are all on the same btrfs filesystem. If

COW

copy is not possible, then virt-clone fails.

-m

MAC

--mac

MAC

Fixed

MAC

address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or the value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be randomly generated. Addresses are applied sequentially to the networks as they are listed in the original guest

XML.

--print-xml

Print the generated clone

XML

and exit without cloning.

--replace

Shutdown and remove any existing guest with the passed "--name" before cloning the original guest.

-h

--help

Show the help message and exit

--version

Show program's version number and exit

--check

Enable or disable some validation checks. See virt-install(1) for more details.

-q

--quiet

Suppress non-error output.

-d

--debug

Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install process. The debugging information is also stored in "~/.cache/virt-manager/virt-clone.log" even if this parameter is omitted.

EXAMPLES

Clone the guest called "demo" on the default connection, auto generating a new name and disk clone path.

  # virt-clone \
       --original demo \
       --auto-clone

Clone the guest called "demo" which has a single disk to copy

  # virt-clone \
       --original demo \
       --name newdemo \
       --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img

Clone a

guest with multiple disks

  # virt-clone \
       --connect qemu:///system \
       --original demo \
       --name newdemo \
       --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img \
       --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdata.img

Clone a guest to a physical device which is at least as big as the original guests disks. If the destination device is bigger, the new guest can do a filesystem resize when it boots.

  # virt-clone \
       --connect qemu:///system \
       --original demo \
       --name newdemo \
       --file /dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
       --mac 52:54:00:34:11:54

BUGS

Please see virt-manager.org/page/BugReporting

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) Fujitsu Limited, Copyright (C) Red Hat, Inc, and various contributors. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the General Public License "www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html". There is to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

"virt-sysprep(1)", virsh(1), "virt-install(1)", "virt-manager(1)", the project website "virt-manager.org"