1VIRT-CLONE(1)               Virtual Machine Manager              VIRT-CLONE(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       virt-clone - clone existing virtual machine images
7

SYNOPSIS

9       virt-clone [OPTION]...
10

DESCRIPTION

12       virt-clone is a command line tool for cloning existing virtual machine
13       images using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. It will copy
14       the disk images of any existing virtual machine, and define a new guest
15       with an identical virtual hardware configuration. Elements which
16       require uniqueness will be updated to avoid a clash between old and new
17       guests.
18
19       By default, virt-clone will show an error if the necessary information
20       to clone the guest is not provided. The --auto-clone option will
21       generate all needed input, aside from the source guest to clone.
22
23       Please note, virt-clone does not change anything _inside_ the guest OS,
24       it only duplicates disks and does host side changes. So things like
25       changing passwords, changing static IP address, etc are outside the
26       scope of this tool. For these types of changes, please see virt-
27       sysprep.
28

GENERAL OPTIONS

30       Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --original or
31       --original-xml (to specify the guest to clone), --name, and appropriate
32       storage options via -file.
33
34       --connect URI
35           Connect to a non-default hypervisor. See virt-install(1) for
36           details
37
38       -o ORIGINAL_GUEST
39       --original ORIGINAL_GUEST
40           Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut
41           off or paused since it is not possible to safely clone active
42           guests at this time.
43
44       --original-xml ORIGINAL_XML
45           Libvirt guest xml file to use as the original guest. The guest does
46           not need to be defined on the libvirt connection. This takes the
47           place of the "--original" parameter.
48
49       --auto-clone
50           Generate a new guest name, and paths for new storage.
51
52           An example or possible generated output:
53
54             Original name        : MyVM
55             Generated clone name : MyVM-clone
56
57             Original disk path   : /home/user/foobar.img
58             Generated disk path  : /home/user/foobar-clone.img
59
60           If generated names collide with existing VMs or storage, a number
61           is appended, such as foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.
62
63       -n NAME
64       --name NAME
65           Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique
66           amongst all guests known to the hypervisor connection, including
67           those not currently active.
68
69       -u UUID
70       --uuid UUID
71           UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be
72           generated. If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit
73           hexadecimal number. UUID are intended to be unique across the
74           entire data center, and indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually
75           specifying a UUID
76
77       -f DISKFILE
78       --file DISKFILE
79           Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the
80           backing store for the new guest's virtual disk. If the original
81           guest has multiple disks, this parameter must be repeated multiple
82           times, once per disk in the original virtual machine.
83
84       --nvram NVRAMFILE
85           Optional path to the new nvram VARS file, if no path is specified
86           and the guest has nvram the new nvram path will be auto-generated.
87           If the guest doesn't have nvram this option will be ignored.
88
89       --force-copy TARGET
90           Force cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By
91           default, "virt-clone" will skip certain disks, such as those marked
92           'readonly' or 'shareable'.
93
94       --skip-copy TARGET
95           Skip cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By
96           default, "virt-clone" will clone certain disk images, typically
97           read/write devices. Use this to skip copying of a specific device,
98           so the new VM uses the same storage path as the original VM.
99
100       --nonsparse
101           Fully allocate the new storage if the path being cloned is a sparse
102           file.  See virt-install(1) for more details on sparse vs.
103           nonsparse.
104
105       --preserve-data
106           No storage is cloned: disk images specific by --file are preserved
107           as is, and referenced in the new clone XML. This is useful if you
108           want to clone a VM XML template, but not the storage contents.
109
110       --reflink
111           When --reflink is specified, perform a lightweight copy. This is
112           much faster if source images and destination images are all on the
113           same btrfs filesystem.  If COW copy is not possible, then virt-
114           clone fails.
115
116       -m MAC
117       --mac MAC
118           Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or
119           the value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be randomly
120           generated. Addresses are applied sequentially to the networks as
121           they are listed in the original guest XML.
122
123       --print-xml
124           Print the generated clone XML and exit without cloning.
125
126       --replace
127           Shutdown and remove any existing guest with the passed "--name"
128           before cloning the original guest.
129
130       -h
131       --help
132           Show the help message and exit
133
134       --version
135           Show program's version number and exit
136
137       --check
138           Enable or disable some validation checks. See virt-install(1) for
139           more details.
140
141       -q
142       --quiet
143           Suppress non-error output.
144
145       -d
146       --debug
147           Print debugging information to the terminal when running the
148           install process.  The debugging information is also stored in
149           "~/.cache/virt-manager/virt-clone.log" even if this parameter is
150           omitted.
151

EXAMPLES

153       Clone the guest called "demo" on the default connection, auto
154       generating a new name and disk clone path.
155
156         # virt-clone \
157              --original demo \
158              --auto-clone
159
160       Clone the guest called "demo" which has a single disk to copy
161
162         # virt-clone \
163              --original demo \
164              --name newdemo \
165              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img
166
167       Clone a QEMU guest with multiple disks
168
169         # virt-clone \
170              --connect qemu:///system \
171              --original demo \
172              --name newdemo \
173              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img \
174              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdata.img
175
176       Clone a guest to a physical device which is at least as big as the
177       original guests disks. If the destination device is bigger, the new
178       guest can do a filesystem resize when it boots.
179
180         # virt-clone \
181              --connect qemu:///system \
182              --original demo \
183              --name newdemo \
184              --file /dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
185              --mac 52:54:00:34:11:54
186

BUGS

188       Please see <https://virt-manager.org/bugs>
189
191       Copyright (C) Fujitsu Limited, Copyright (C) Red Hat, Inc, and various
192       contributors.  This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it
193       under the terms of the GNU General Public License
194       "https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html".  There is NO WARRANTY, to the
195       extent permitted by law.
196

SEE ALSO

198       "virt-sysprep(1)", virsh(1), "virt-install(1)", "virt-manager(1)", the
199       project website "https://virt-manager.org"
200
201
202
2032.2.1                             2019-07-27                     VIRT-CLONE(1)
Impressum