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MacDream
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare Fusion clones

I have looked for information on cloning VMW Fusion in the VMWare forums with no success.

I went back from the last post 10 pages ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) and no avail.

There is some stuff for other VMWare products, but not for Fusion as far I can see.

Things like "Virtual Center" and "Clone a Virtual Machine Wizard" option are mensioned in several threads and help files, but none of them seem to be linked to "Fusion".

I did a search on Google and a thread about this issue is in this forum, but the last post was made in Octuber 22, 2007: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/91685

Does anybody know if something easier has been found for cloning VMW Fusion?

(Like in Parallels "Clone" option)

Is the method described in the thread mentioned above ( http://communities.vmware.com/thread/91685 ) reliable ?

Thanks a lot!

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WoodyZ
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Does anybody know if something easier has been found for cloning VMW Fusion?

(Like in Parallels "Clone" option)

Is the method described in the thread mentioned above ( http://communities.vmware.com/thread/91685 ) reliable ?

The very first responce by Pat Lee in that thread is the exact and correct answer! It is just that simple! Doing that makes an exact copy of the existing Virtual Machine however just as in cloning a physical system there are known issues associated with cloning and some of that is address in that thread as well.

webfrasse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yep, it's that simple. You might also want to change the display name of the VM but that's it.

It's no more complicated than cloning a Word document.

/Mikael

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MacDream
Contributor
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Thank you for trying WoodyZ.

But you didn't answer:

Does anybody know if something easier has been found for cloning VMW Fusion?

(Like in Parallels "Clone" option)

I think I have to infer the answer is NO there isn't anything yet.

At least that you don't know.

What I'm asking for is if there is an EASIER way of cloning VMW. Just by clicking a button and that's it.

No hassles. No changing names in and out of those files. No editing.

All this is because I'm giving a second try to VMW which I put aside last year and I don't know the progress VMW has made since then.

I also want to repeat the second question (which remains unanswered):

Is the method described in the thread mentioned above ( http://communities.vmware.com/thread/91685 ) reliable ?

I'm trying to find out if this method leads to a buggy VMW, strange behaviors or the like.

Thank you very much.

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MacDream
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Mikael/Webfrasse:

I'm just going to quote you:

....

To copy a VM works exactly the same way with VMware Server on any platform or Workstation for that matter. Workstation has an edge here though since it has a built in cloning tool. Please VMware...give us this cloning tool in Fusion. Parallells already has it....

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webfrasse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

To answer your second question. Yes. It's reliable. There is nothing that can go wrong when you copy a VM. Just as when you copy a Word doc or any file.

Yes, I asked for a cloning tool since it will do the renaming and allow you to locate the copy somewhere else in one step but it really isn't more complicated than selecting the VM in your Finder and press Command-c and Command-v to copy and paste it in the same folder. The new VM will then be named "myVM copy" if your VM is called myVM. When the copy procedure is done just double click on "myVM copy" to start it. Can it be easier?

/Mikael

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Phuongca
Contributor
Contributor

in fairness, since it's that easy, i think it's also very easy to implement that function into Fusion. probably just a few lines of code.

i would imagine that the only (optional) input that we have to enter into a msg box is the name of the cloned machine. and then the rest is done automatically (ctrl-c, ctrl-v, rename etc)

on a side note, if you have to rename the cloned machine several time, it is quite a different story than doing it one time. so, the cloning function could be useful in this case. so, it allows you to clone a VM multiple times, all at once. the clones' names may have suffixes as A, B, C, D... or 01, 02, 03... etc.

i can't think of any good reason why a person would want to clone multiple virtual machine though.

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bmwumd
Contributor
Contributor

I create clones all the time for testing out large clusters of machines quickly and easily. What I'm not seeing here is how to create a linked clone. I don't really want to have to use the same amount of disk space for a vm that is just some minor difference of the base vm, especially when I am creating 10 of them. Anyone have any idea how to do that?

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webfrasse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Not implemented in Fusion. Only available in Workstation on Windows and Linux.

/Mikael

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JKFusion
Contributor
Contributor

I have found using Volume License XP that the easiest way to copy a VM is to copy the package and then to open it as a new VM. Fusion will prompt for a move or copy, select copy. Run Newsid on the VM after startup and during that rename it. Rename the VM in the settings window and your done. This removes the editing of any files as there is no need.

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dp_fusion
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

There's really nothing missing from Fusion in this regard. The quickest way to create a clone is to use finder and drag one to an new name/place. No menu item in Fusion will do it faster. But recall that a clone is an exact copy of the original. Same IP, same host name, same email queue, same printer queue, same user logins, same licensed software (legal issue here) same cron jobs - same everything - which means if you have any pending mail, print jobs, or cron processes, the clone will attempt to process all that when you start up the vm. So when you turn on your clone it is no different than if you had turned on your original. And if the original is running already then you have some interesting issues. That is what clones do.

I suspect that is not what you really want, but it may be. It is a excellent way to have mail disappear on you though (as a minimum), as both the clone and the original can start up with a mail client running, and both can busily grab mail when you're not paying attention, and if you had a print job pending because the priner was out of paper, it will still be there ready to print when turned back on. Clones come with what IBM Fellow Mike Cowlishaw calls "a high astonishment factor" if you don't understand them well.

Most likely you would like a template, or master copy of your original, and that would be everything mentioned above except no personality - no host name, no IP, no network configuration, nothing, in other words, that will get you in trouble the way a clone will. Fusion doesn't do that. And I doubt Parallels does, either, but it's been a very long time since I tossed out all my Parallels licenses.

My guess is VMWare Workstation does this, and of course ESX does, but you pay a premium for that.

What I would much rather see is some AppleScript libraries built into Fusion so some things can be scripted. One of those things could be a clone/template generating tool. It wouldn't take many lines of AppleScript code to write a tool to make a Linux template.

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