How to create new virtual machine from a file of existed virtual machine?

[George_Yu]

I have two hard disks on my VMware host. There are virtual machines on a SATA disk, how can I list these virtual machines files and copy one of them to create a new virtual machine (this way can save my much time!). I did it by this way on VMware server 2.0 because I can see what they were and where they were on Windows. But, on vSphere, how can I do it? Maybe you guys have other ways to do it?

Thanks!

George

[athlon_crazy · Accepted solution]

On vSphere, I suggest you to use vConventer standalone instead. It's pretty simple and easy to use. Otherwise, you can copy or clone the virtual disk from offline VM via Service Console (ESX)

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

http://www.no-x.org

[George_Yu]

" you can copy or clone the virtual disk from offline VM via Service Console (ESX)"

How can I do it? by Linux commands? Could you show them to me?

Thanks!

[a_p_]

If you want to do a 1-to-1 copy you can also use the datastore browser. Just open two datastore browser windows and copy the files and/or folders from the source to the destination datastore.

Be aware that you may need to have additional work to do on the VM's OS, e.g. change the SID (for Windows systems), hostname and ip-address...

André

[athlon_crazy]

Make new directory for new VM

$makedir /vmfs/volmes/.../newVM

Power-off source VM you want to copy

$vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/.../sourceVM/sourceVM.vmx stop soft

Copy vmdk from source to new

$cp -p /vmfs/volumes/../sourceVM/sourceVM.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/.../newVM/newVM.vmdk

or using clone $vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/../sourceVM/sourceVM.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/.../newVM/newVM.vmdk

to get more help $man vmkfstools

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/templates/gold-master.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/myVMFS/myOS.vmdk

Clones the contents of a gold master virtual disk image from a template repository to a virtual disk named `myOS.vmdk` on the VMFS file sys-

tem called myVMFS.

Then, you can add the disk to new or existing VM (VM edit setting -> add hardware -> add hardrive -> choose existing)

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

http://www.no-x.org