NAME

       virt-clone - clone existing virtual machine images

SYNOPSIS

       virt-clone [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION

       virt-clone is a command line tool for cloning existing virtual machine images using the
       "libvirt" hypervisor management library. It will copy the disk images of any existing
       virtual machine, and define a new guest with an identical virtual hardware configuration.
       Elements which require uniqueness will be updated to avoid a clash between old and new
       guests.

       By default, virt-clone will show an error if the necessary information to clone the guest
       is not provided. The --auto-clone option will generate all needed input, aside from the
       source guest to clone.

       Please note, virt-clone does not change anything _inside_ the guest OS, it only duplicates
       disks and does host side changes. So things like changing passwords, changing static IP
       address, etc are outside the scope of this tool. For these types of changes, please see
       virt-sysprep.

GENERAL OPTIONS

       Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --original or --original-xml (to
       specify the guest to clone), --name, and appropriate storage options via -file.

       --connect URI
           Connect to a non-default hypervisor. See virt-install(1) for details

       -o ORIGINAL_GUEST
       --original ORIGINAL_GUEST
           Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut off or paused since
           it is not possible to safely clone active guests at this time.

       --original-xml ORIGINAL_XML
           Libvirt guest xml file to use as the original guest. The guest does not need to be
           defined on the libvirt connection. This takes the place of the "--original" parameter.

       --auto-clone
           Generate a new guest name, and paths for new storage.

           An example or possible generated output:

             Original name        : MyVM
             Generated clone name : MyVM-clone

             Original disk path   : /home/user/foobar.img
             Generated disk path  : /home/user/foobar-clone.img

           If generated names collide with existing VMs or storage, a number is appended, such as
           foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.

       -n NAME
       --name NAME
           Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique amongst all guests
           known to the hypervisor connection, including those not currently active.

       -u UUID
       --uuid UUID
           UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be generated. If you specify
           UUID, you should use a 32-digit hexadecimal number. UUID are intended to be unique
           across the entire data center, and indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually
           specifying a UUID

       -f DISKFILE
       --file DISKFILE
           Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the backing store for
           the new guest's virtual disk. If the original guest has multiple disks, this parameter
           must be repeated multiple times, once per disk in the original virtual machine.

       --nvram NVRAMFILE
           Optional path to the new nvram VARS file, if no path is specified and the guest has
           nvram the new nvram path will be auto-generated. If the guest doesn't have nvram this
           option will be ignored.

       --force-copy TARGET
           Force cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By default, "virt-clone"
           will skip certain disks, such as those marked 'readonly' or 'shareable'.

       --nonsparse
           Fully allocate the new storage if the path being cloned is a sparse file.  See
           virt-install(1) for more details on sparse vs. nonsparse.

       --preserve-data
           No storage is cloned: disk images specific by --file are preserved as is, and
           referenced in the new clone XML. This is useful if you want to clone a VM XML
           template, but not the storage contents.

       --reflink
           When --reflink is specified, perform a lightweight copy. This is much faster if source
           images and destination images are all on the same btrfs filesystem.  If COW copy is
           not possible, then virt-clone fails.

       -m MAC
       --mac MAC
           Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or the value "RANDOM"
           is specified a suitable address will be randomly generated. Addresses are applied
           sequentially to the networks as they are listed in the original guest XML.

       --print-xml
           Print the generated clone XML and exit without cloning.

       --replace
           Shutdown and remove any existing guest with the passed "--name" before cloning the
           original guest.

       -h
       --help
           Show the help message and exit

       --version
           Show program's version number and exit

       --check
           Enable or disable some validation checks. See virt-install(1) for more details.

       -q
       --quiet
           Suppress non-error output.

       -d
       --debug
           Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install process.  The
           debugging information is also stored in "~/.cache/virt-manager/virt-clone.log" even if
           this parameter is omitted.

EXAMPLES

       Clone the guest called "demo" on the default connection, auto generating a new name and
       disk clone path.

         # virt-clone \
              --original demo \
              --auto-clone

       Clone the guest called "demo" which has a single disk to copy

         # virt-clone \
              --original demo \
              --name newdemo \
              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img

       Clone a QEMU guest with multiple disks

         # virt-clone \
              --connect qemu:///system \
              --original demo \
              --name newdemo \
              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img \
              --file /var/lib/xen/images/newdata.img

       Clone a guest to a physical device which is at least as big as the original guests disks.
       If the destination device is bigger, the new guest can do a filesystem resize when it
       boots.

         # virt-clone \
              --connect qemu:///system \
              --original demo \
              --name newdemo \
              --file /dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
              --mac 52:54:00:34:11:54

BUGS

       Please see http://virt-manager.org/page/BugReporting

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) Fujitsu Limited, Copyright (C) Red Hat, Inc, and various contributors.  This
       is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General
       Public License "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html".  There is NO WARRANTY, to the
       extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

       "virt-sysprep(1)", virsh(1), "virt-install(1)", "virt-manager(1)", the project website
       "http://virt-manager.org"