VIRT-CLONE(1)



VIRT-CLONE(1)               Virtual Machine Manager              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
       require 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
       generate 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
           details

       -o ORIGINAL_GUEST
       --original ORIGINAL_GUEST
           Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut
           off or paused since it is not possible to safely clone active
           guests at this time.

       --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 or 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 number
           is appended, such as foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.

       -n NAME
       --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
           UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be
           generated. If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit
           hexadecimal 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 DISKFILE
       --file DISKFILE
           Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the
           backing store for the new 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.

       --nvram NVRAMFILE
           Optional path to the new nvram VARS file, if no path is specified
           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
           default, "virt-clone" will clone certain disk images, typically
           read/write devices. Use this to skip copying of a specific device,
           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 preserved
           as is, and referenced in the new clone XML. This is useful 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 MAC
           Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or
           the value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be randomly
           generated. Addresses are applied sequentially to the networks 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
           install 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"

2.2.1                             2020-04-26                     VIRT-CLONE(1)

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