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KrisVdV
Contributor
Contributor

create osx sandbox?

Hi,

I'm running mountain lion on my macbook and I use Fusion for running a VM with WIndows 7.

At this moment, I'm thinking of installing a new osx application in a separate OSX for testing purposes (in other words : use a sandbox to keep the testing seperate from my main 'production' desktop).

Can I duplicate my OSX system (P2V) while I'm booted with that system?  Or is there a better way to create a sandbox?

thanks for the help,

Kris

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

VMware Fusion does not natively support the P2V of Mac OS X or OS X nor does any other VMware product.  Additionally if OS X came preinstalled on the Mac then by its SLA one is not entitled to virtualize it and would need to purchase it from the App Store to legally virtualize it.  This is of course only applicable to versions that are legally virtualized.

Otherwise one can use any of the standard methods to create a disk image and restore it using products like CCC, SuperDuper! or native to OS X use Disk Utility.  With the later however one may need to boot from bootable media to image it.  I can't say for sure since I've always imaged the disk while booted not from the source disk.  I do this mainly for P2P images use however have restored the resultant image to a Virtual Machine so it is doable.

That said, for production use I always prefer to clean build a Virtual Machine vs P2V as it usually will be less problematic and produces better overall results in the long.

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

In addition to Woody's comments, you can, during a clean install of OSX in the VM, point it to a non-running clone of your physical system (or time machine backup) and use the migration wizard to bring over your data and applications.  That seems to be a good option between a true clone and a clean build.

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