Create a clone of an existing Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machine.
The VBoxManage clonevm command creates a clone of an existing virtual machine (VM). The clone can be a full copy of the VM or a linked copy of a VM.
You must specify the name or the universal unique identifier (UUID) of the VM you want to clone.
The following list describes the operand and the options that you can use with the VBoxManage clonevm command:
-
vmname|uuid
Specifies the name or UUID of the VM to clone.
-
--basefolder=
basefolder
Specifies the name of the folder in which to save the configuration for the new VM.
-
--groups=
group
,... Assigns the clone to the specified group or groups. If you specify more than one group, separate each group name with a comma.
Note that each group is identified by a group ID that starts with a slash character (
/
) so that groups can be nested. By default, a clone is always assigned membership to the/
group.-
--mode=machine|machineandchildren|all
Specifies which of the following cloning modes to use:
machine
mode clones the current state of the existing VM without any snapshots. This is the default mode.machineandchildren
mode clones the snapshot specified by by the--snapshot
option and all child snapshots.all
mode clones all snapshots and the current state of the existing VM.
-
--name=
name
Specifies a new name for the new VM. The default value is
whereoriginal-name
Cloneoriginal-name
is the original name of the VM.-
--options=
option
,... Specifies how to create the new clone.
The
--options
argument can be used multiple times to enable multiple options, or the options can be given as a comma separated list. The options are case insensitive.The following options (case-insensitive) are recognized:
-
Link
Creates a linked clone from a snapshot only.
-
KeepAllMACs
Specifies that the new clone reuses the MAC addresses of each virtual network card from the existing VM.
If you do not specify this option or the
--options=keepnatmacs
option, the default behavior is to reinitialize the MAC addresses of each virtual network card.-
KeepNATMACs
Specifies that the new clone reuses the MAC addresses of each virtual network card from the existing VM when the network type is NAT.
If you do not specify this option or the
KeepAllMACs
option, the default behavior is to reinitialize the MAC addresses of each virtual network card.-
KeepDiskNames
Specifies that the new clone reuses the disk image names from the existing VM. By default, disk images are renamed.
-
KeepHwUUIDs
Specifies that the new clone reuses the hardware IDs from the existing VM. By default, new UUIDs are used.
-
-
--register
Automatically registers the new clone in this Oracle VM VirtualBox installation. You can manually register the new VM later by using the VBoxManage registervm command. See Section 7.6, “VBoxManage registervm/unregistervm”.
-
--snapshot=
snapshot-name
Specifies the snapshot on which to base the new VM. By default, the clone is created from the current state of the specified VM.
-
--uuid=
uuid
Specifies the UUID for the new VM. Ensure that this ID is unique for the Oracle VM VirtualBox instance if you decide to register this new VM. By default, Oracle VM VirtualBox provides a new UUID.
The following command creates and registers an exact clone of the
ol7
VM. The clone is called
ol7-dev-001
.
The new clone includes all of the source VM's snapshots. The new VM also reuses all network interface MAC addresses, disk names, and UUIDs from the source VM.
$ VBoxManage clonevm ol7 --name="ol7-dev-001" --register --mode=all \ --options=keepallmacs --options=keepdisknames --options=keephwuuids
The following command creates and registers a clone of the
Snapshot 1
snapshot of the
ol7
VM. The clone is called
ol7-dev-002
.
$ VBoxManage clonevm ol7 --name="ol7-dev-002" --register --snapshot="Snapshot 1"