VIRT-CLONE(1) Virtualization Support VIRT-CLONE(1)
NAME
virt-clone - clone existing virtual machine images
SYNOPSIS
virt-clone [OPTION]...
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 re-
quire 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 gener-
ate all needed input, aside from the source guest to clone.
Please note, virt-clone does not change anything _inside_ the guest OS,
it only duplicates disks and does host side changes. So things like
changing passwords, changing static IP 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 de-
tails
-o, --original ORIGINAL_GUEST
Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut
off.
--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 of 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 num-
ber is appended, such as foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.
-n, --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 for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be gen-
erated. If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit hexadeci-
mal 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, --file PATH
Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as
the backing store for the new guest's virtual disk. If the orig-
inal guest has multiple disks, this parameter must be repeated
multiple times, once per disk in the original virtual machine.
--nvram NVRAMFILE
Optional path to the new nvram VARS file, if no path is speci-
fied and the guest has nvram the new nvram path will be
auto-generated. If the guest doesn't have nvram this option will
be ignored.
--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'.
--skip-copy TARGET
Skip cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By de-
fault, virt-clone will clone certain disk images, typically
read/write devices. Use this to skip copying of a specific de-
vice, so the new VM uses the same storage path as the original
VM.
--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 pre-
served as is, and referenced in the new clone XML. This is use-
ful 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
Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted,
or the value RANDOM is specified a suitable address will be ran-
domly generated. Addresses are applied sequentially to the net-
works 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 in-
stall 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 QEMU 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 https://virt-manager.org/bugs
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 GNU General Public License
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. There is NO WARRANTY, to the
extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
virt-sysprep(1), virsh(1), virt-install(1), virt-manager(1), the
project website https://virt-manager.org
VIRT-CLONE(1)
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