4.2. Cloning a Virtual Machine

Before proceeding with cloning, shut down the virtual machine. You can clone the virtual machine using virt-clone or virt-manager.

4.2.1. Cloning Guests with virt-clone

You can use virt-clone to clone virtual machines from the command line.

Note that you need root privileges for virt-clone to complete successfully.

The virt-clone command provides a number of options that can be passed on the command line. These include general options, storage configuration options, networking configuration options, and miscellaneous options. Only the --original is required. To see a complete list of options, enter the following command:

# virt-clone --help

The virt-clone man page also documents each command option, important variables, and examples.

The following example shows how to clone a guest virtual machine called "demo" on the default connection, automatically generating a new name and disk clone path.

Example 4.1. Using virt-clone to clone a guest

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

The following example shows how to clone a QEMU guest virtual machine called "demo" with multiple disks.

Example 4.2. Using virt-clone to clone a guest

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

4.2.2. Cloning Guests with virt-manager

This procedure describes cloning a guest virtual machine using the virt-manager utility.

Procedure 4.2. Cloning a Virtual Machine with virt-manager

Open virt-manager
Start virt-manager. Launch the Virtual Machine Manager application from the Applications menu and System Tools submenu. Alternatively, run the virt-manager command as root.
Select the guest virtual machine you want to clone from the list of guest virtual machines in Virtual Machine Manager.
Right-click the guest virtual machine you want to clone and select Clone. The Clone Virtual Machine window opens.
Figure 4.1. Clone Virtual Machine window
Configure the clone
- To change the name of the clone, enter a new name for the clone.
- To change the networking configuration, click Details.
  Enter a new MAC address for the clone.
  Click OK.
  Figure 4.2. Change MAC Address window
- For each disk in the cloned guest virtual machine, select one of the following options:
  - Clone this disk - The disk will be cloned for the cloned guest virtual machine
  - Share disk with guest virtual machine name - The disk will be shared by the guest virtual machine that will be cloned and its clone
  - Details - Opens the Change storage path window, which enables selecting a new path for the disk
    Figure 4.3. Change storage path window
Clone the guest virtual machine
Click Clone.