What is the best way to copy a VMware virtual machine?

If you saved all VM files in the same directory, then just make a copy and it will work fine I have a few versions of Windows burnt on a DVD like that and they always work on any PC I put them.

If you saved all VM files in the same directory, then just make a copy and it will work fine. I have a few versions of Windows burnt on a DVD like that and they always work on any PC I put them.

This might not be enough if you expect to use that copy as a real working server. See this tip: stackoverflow. Com/questions/898141/… – Dan Tanner Sep 27 '10 at 14:02 this is the beauty of VMWare.

VirtualBox is just as easy but only if you figure out the process first... – djangofan Nov 8 '10 at 21:46 This doesn't work if the new VM will still try to use the old . Vmdk file in the original folder. You'll have to edit the new VM to point to the new HD before you start it.

– sep332 Oct 18 at 17:05.

Inside VMware there is a "clone" option From help file: Setting a Clone Template Choose: VM > Settings > Options > Advanced When you create a linked clone of a virtual machine, the clone depends on the parent virtual machine to function. If a linked clone is unable to access the parent virtual machine or the snapshot on which the clone is based, the clone no longer operates. You can avoid this problem by designating the parent virtual machine of a linked clone as a template.

Normally, to clone a virtual machine, you must have write access to that virtual machine. A virtual machine that is designated as a clone template can be cloned by users who do not have write access to the template virtual machine. To designate this virtual machine as a template, select Enable Template mode.In order to protect linked clones, a template virtual machine cannot be deleted or added to a team.

None of the template’s snapshots be deleted. For more information on linked clones, see Snapshot Actions and see the chapter about cloning virtual machines in the VMware Workstation User’s Manual.

Make sure the machine is shutdown first, not supper important but just a good idea, then copy the entire directory somewhere else. When you open the VM from the VMWare interface, it will notice if it's not in the same directory and ask if you have moved or copied the VM. Obviously choose, copy.It really is pretty much that simple.

I VMWare workstation, you can make clones of VM's in other directories, and this pretty much does the same thing as copying them. Remember a linked clone is dependent on the VM it was created from, its simply a delta of it.

1 However, making sure the machine is at least suspended, if not shut down, is super important. :-) – Chris Jester-Young Sep 27 '08 at 22:55.

To get an independent copy you can copy the virtual machine directory or do a Full Clone from the VMware interface. I'd recommend using Clone rather than copy for the reasons below. If you copy you will get the VM with all the snapshots you currently have.

If you do a Full Clone you will just get the state you pick which will make the copy smaller than the original. Even if you don't have any snapshots doing a Full Clone can create a smaller copy so it's usually best to do this. If you copy the files when you next start the VM you will get a message asking if you Moved or Copied the VM.

If you answer "Copied" VMware will change the MAC addresses of the virtual network cards. If you select Full Clone the MAC address will always be changed without asking If you want to network your copies together - or even just have them running at the same time - new MAC addresses are crucial. However, some Linux distros will fix network interfaces to MAC addresses so you'll need to re-configure your networking after the copy.

Alternatively, you can edit the configuration beforehand so Linux doesn't pay attention to the MAC address. Windows does not fix interfaces to hardware addresses so you won't see this problem.

If "making multiple backups of a machine's state" and "try out different ways of setting up a server" is what your question is actually about, you don't want to copy the VM, but instead just take Snapshots. You can return to any of the snapshots at any time and even branch to another state. And from here, cloning is finally available, but you'll only need it to copy one of the snapshots to another machine.

Taking and restoring snapshots is, in my experience, much faster than cloning.

I've done full copies of VMware virtual machines before. The instruction manual (for VMware Server at least) says that you have to suspend the virtual machine while it's being backed up, if it's currently running. I wrote a script for doing VMware virtual machine backups, URL1 may or may not work for you; if you wish to use it, try it on a test virtual machine first, and make sure it does what you need before deploying it fully.

:-) #! /usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Carp; use Fcntl qw(:mode); use POSIX qw(:sys_wait_h); use File::Spec; use IO::Dir; use VMware::VmPerl; use VMware::VmPerl::ConnectParams; use VMware::VmPerl::VM; sub timestamp($) { my ($message) = @_; printf STDERR "%s %s\n", scalar localtime, $message; } sub throw($) { my ($vm) = @_; my ($err, $errstr) = $vm->get_last_error; croak "VMControl error $err: $errstr"; } sub process($$) { my ($vm, $proc) = @_; if ($vm->get_execution_state == VM_EXECUTION_STATE_ON) { my $name = $vm->get_config_file_name; timestamp "Suspending $name"; $vm->suspend(VM_POWEROP_MODE_TRYSOFT) or throw $vm; &$proc; timestamp "Resuming $name"; $vm->start(VM_POWEROP_MODE_TRYSOFT) or throw $vm; } else { &$proc; } } sub backup($$) { my ($vm_dir, $backup_prefix) = @_; timestamp "Backing up $vm_dir"; system '/bin/tar', 'czSf', "$backup_prefix.tar. Gz", $vm_dir; } die "usage: backup-vms vms-dir backup-dir\n" unless @ARGV == 2; my ($vms_dir, $backup_dir) = @ARGV; timestamp 'Start of backup'; tie my %vms_entries, 'IO::Dir', $vms_dir; my @vm_dirs = grep!

/^\. / && $vms_entries{$_}->mode & S_IFDIR, keys %vms_entries; untie %vms_entries; # The VmPerl classes' new subs are really broken: they don't use the first # argument as the class name, and thus you aren't supposed to use constructor # syntax with them.My $cp = VMware::VmPerl::ConnectParams::new; my $vm = VMware::VmPerl::VM::new; for my $vm_dir (@vm_dirs) { my $full_vm_dir = File::Spec->catdir($vms_dir, $vm_dir); eval { # . Vmx file assumed to be named the same as the directory $vm->connect($cp, File::Spec->catfile($full_vm_dir, "$vm_dir.

Vmx")) or throw $vm; process($vm, sub () { backup($full_vm_dir, File::Spec->catdir($backup_dir, $vm_dir)); }); $vm->disconnect; }; timestamp $@ if $@; } timestamp 'End of backup.

I have created a much simpler clone script. All you have to give it is the directory of the source VM and the directory of the target VM. It will do the rest.

After the clone is created, start it up, and choose "Create" for UID and change the IP if it is statically allocated. #! /bin/bash if $# -eq 0 ; then echo clone source-dir target-dir num hour/min/sec else echo Cloning "$1" to "$2" vmx=`find "$1" -name '*vmx'` if "$vmx" == "" ; then echo Could not find VMX else echo "$1" vmx is "$vmx" if "$3"!

= "" ; then declare -i sec sec=0 case "$4" in "hour") sec=`expr "$3" \* 3600` ;; "min") sec=`expr "$3" \* 60` ;; "sec") sec="$3" ;; esac echo waiting for $sec sleep $sec fi declare -i start declare -i now start=`date +%s` suspend="y" state="`vmware-cmd "$vmx" getstate`" if "$state" == "getstate() = suspended" ; then suspend="n" fi if "$suspend" == "y" ; then if "suspend() = 1" == "`vmware-cmd "$vmx" suspend`" ; then suspend="n" fi fi if "$suspend" == "n" ; then while "getstate() = on" == "`vmware-cmd "$vmx" getstate`" ; do vmware-cmd "$vmx" getstate echo Waiitng for VM to suspend sleep 5 done now=`date +%s` echo Suspend took `expr $now - $start` seconds start=`date +%s` #create new dir mkdir "$2" cp -vr "$1"/* "$2" now=`date +%s` echo Copy took `expr $now - $start` seconds vmware-cmd "$vmx" start echo Clone complete else echo Suspend failed fi fi fi.

We used to have scripts but it's way easier with BackupChain VMware backup. The delta compression feature I think is a big advantage compared to file copies because it saves space.

I use several VMs for different purposes. Some of the Microsoft ones become quite large, and managing them between several computers without serious hosted service becomes an issue. I have a couple solutions for different sizes and uses cases.

We use VMware but I'm almost certain the other programs offer the same services for networking. You can used "guest" networking or "bridged". Shared basically uses the networking available to the host computer and bridged allows the VM to get its own IP address on the network.

I use both as needed and this will be crucial. For our small lamp testing VMs and other under 2 gig sized VMs, I usually use guest networking networking to save an address on the network. This is important if there are many VMs running and network addresses are scarce.

If I need to test any sites on other computers, I bridge the network and just leave the VM running while accessing it on another computer on the network. These VMs are usually easy to copy and don't take time to migrate to other computers For larger VMs (3-5gb), we usually have them running on a host PC where they stay. Copies are saved locally on the host PC.

When we need to access them we use microsoft's remote desktop connection which has the advantage of being able to scale the resolution size beyond the host's screen resolution. My main concerns are spending time migrating large copies of VMs, so these solutions solve my problems in most instances. Obviously .

Nix boxes can just be ssh'd into if they are on a network, which is the ideal solution assuming your host has the processing power to let a VM run in the background.

If you are using VMWare Fusion, you may find that the information on at the following URL is useful : lbackup.org/developer/vmware_fusion_virt....

The best solution I've found to copy or back up a vmware virtual machine is Uranium Backup: uraniumbackup.com. It isn't free, but the price is the lowest one. It's very easy to copy VMs in vmware player or to back up ESXi or vSphere virtual machines.

Just thought of this but haven't actually done is to use vmware converter to make a copy of the machine on the fly. You may have to install locally on the VM. It would copy the machine in it's current state to another location.

Again, done it on actual running physical servers but don't see why can't do on another running vm. HTH Dave.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.