virt-clone(1M) System Administration Commands virt-clone(1M)NAMEvirt-clone - clone virtual machine images
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/virt-clone [option]
DESCRIPTION
The virt-clone utility is a command line tool for cloning existing vir‐
tual machine images. virt-clone copies disk images of an existing vir‐
tual machine and defines a new guest with an identical virtual hardware
configuration. Elements that require uniqueness are updated to avoid a
clash between old and new guests.
With appropriate command-line arguments, virt-clone can run completely
unattended, with the guest automatically starting itself as well. This
allows for easy automation of guest installs.
If you do not specify options to virt-clone, the command runs interac‐
tively, prompting for input as required.
To run virt-clone, you must become superuser or assume the Primary
Administrator role.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
--connect=URI
Connect to the hypervisor at URI.
-d, --debug
Display debugging information when running the install process.
-f disk_image, --file=disk_image
Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the
backing store for the 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 to copy devices (for example, if hdc is a read-only CD-ROM
device, specify --force-copy=hdc)
-h, --help
Display the help message and exit.
-m mac_addr, --mac=mac_addr
Fixed MAC address for the guest. If the keyword random is speci‐
fied, a random address will be used.
-n name, --name=name
Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique
among all guests known to the hypervisor on this machine, including
those not currently active. To redefine an existing guest, use the
virsh(1M) tool to shut it down and delete it prior to running virt-
clone. This parameter will be prompted for if omitted on the com‐
mand line.
--nonsparse
Do not use a sparse file for the clone's disk image.
-o original_guest, --original=original_guest
Name or UUID for the original guest to be cloned. This guest must
be shut down since it is not possible to safely clone active
guests.
--original-xml=filename
The libvirt guest XML file to use as the original guest. The guest
does not need to be defined on the libvirt connection.
--preserve-data
Preserve a new file to use as the disk image for the new guest.
-u UUID, --uuid=UUID
UUID for the guest; if none is specified, a random UUID is gener‐
ated. If you specify UUID, use a 32-digit hexadecimal number. Keep
in mind that UUIDs are intended to be unique across the entire data
center, and indeed, the world.
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Cloning a Guest with a Single Disk
The following command clones a guest named demo, which has a single
disk to copy.
# virt-clone \
--original demo \
--name newdemo \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img
Example 2 Cloning a Guest with Multiple Disks
The following command clones a guest named demo, with has multiple
disks to copy.
# virt-clone \
--original demo \
--name newdemo \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdata.img
Example 3 Cloning to a Device with Comparable Disk Space
The following command clones a guest to a physical device that has at
least as much disk space as had the original guest. . If the destina‐
tion device is has more space, the new guest can do a file system
resize when it boots.
# virt-clone \
--name demo \
--file /dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
--mac 00:16:3e:34:11:54
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │system/xvm/header-xvm │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Volatile │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOvirsh(1M), virt-install(1M), xm(1M), xVM(5), attributes(5), xVM(5)SunOS 5.11 14 Feb 2009 virt-clone(1M)
