Clones

A clone is a writable copy of a virtual disk. The default type of clone is a merged (that is, coalesced) copy of the original virtual disk. An example of a merged clone occurs when a virtual disk is comprised of several snapshots; a subsequent clone operation results in a new virtual disk containing no snapshots. A clone will be of the same type as the original virtual disk (that is, vmdk:fixed). When a merged clone is created there is no linkage back to the original virtual disk or to any of its snapshots. This lack of linkage allows the merged clone to be moved to another physical machine.

Create a clone of the specified snapshot or virtual disk. The clone is created with the type and option and the size of the virtual disk being cloned. If clone_vdname includes a path, the subdirectories from that path will be created during creation of the cloned virtual disk. By default, a merged clone image is created:

# vdiskadm clone [-c comment] vdname|snapshot clone_vdname