| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="clone">
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| 4 | <title>Cloning a Virtual Machine</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>You can create a full copy or a linked copy of an existing VM. This copy is called a <i>clone</i>. You might use
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| 8 | a cloned VM to experiment with a VM configuration, to test different guest OS levels, or to back up a VM. </p>
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| 9 | <p>To clone a VM: </p>
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| 10 | <ol id="ol_ulp_zct_bcc">
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| 11 | <li>Ensure the VM you want to clone is not running.</li>
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| 12 | <li>
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| 13 | <p>Click the VM name in the machine list, and then select <b outputclass="bold">Clone</b> from the <b
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| 14 | outputclass="bold">Machine</b> menu. </p>
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| 15 | </li>
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| 16 | <li>Enter the following details for the clone.<ul id="ul_rkb_nct_bcc">
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| 17 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Name:</b> A name for the cloned machine. </li>
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| 18 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Path:</b> Choose a location for the cloned virtual machine, otherwise <ph
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| 19 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> uses the default machines folder. </li>
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| 20 | <li><b outputclass="bold">MAC Address Policy:</b> Specifies whether to retain network card MAC addresses when
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| 21 | cloning the VM.<p>The <b outputclass="bold">Generate New MAC Addresses For All Network Adapters</b> value
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| 22 | assigns a new MAC address to each network card during cloning. This is the default setting. This is the
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| 23 | best option when both the source VM and the cloned VM must operate on the same network. Other values
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| 24 | enable you to retain the existing MAC addresses in the cloned VM.</p></li>
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| 25 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Keep Disk Names:</b> Retains the disk image names when cloning the VM.</li>
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| 26 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Keep Hardware UUIDs:</b> Retains the hardware universally unique identifiers (UUIDs)
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| 27 | when cloning the VM. </li></ul></li>
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| 28 | <li>Click <b outputclass="bold">Next</b>. The <b outputclass="bold">Clone Type</b> page is displayed.</li>
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| 29 | <li>The <b outputclass="bold">Clone Type</b> option specifies whether to create a clone that is linked to the
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| 30 | source VM or to create a fully independent clone:<ul id="ul_i1y_qn5_bcc">
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| 31 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Full Clone:</b> Copies all dependent disk images to the new VM folder. A full clone
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| 32 | can operate fully without the source VM. </li>
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| 33 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Linked Clone:</b> Creates new differencing disk images based on the source VM disk
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| 34 | images. If you select the current state of the source VM as the clone point, <ph
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| 35 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> creates a new snapshot. </li>
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| 36 | </ul></li>
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| 37 | <li>Click <b outputclass="bold">Next</b>. If your VM has snapshots and you chose Full Clone, use the <b
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| 38 | outputclass="bold">Snapshots</b> page to select the parts of the snapshot tree to clone with the VM.<ul
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| 39 | id="ul_igj_t45_bcc">
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| 40 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Current Machine State:</b> Clones the current state of the VM. Snapshots are not
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| 41 | included. </li>
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| 42 | <li><b outputclass="bold">Everything:</b> Clones the current machine state and all its snapshots.</li>
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| 43 | </ul></li>
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| 44 |
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| 45 | <li><p>Click <b outputclass="bold">Finish</b> to start the clone operation. </p></li></ol>
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| 46 | <p>The duration of the clone operation depends on the size and number of attached disk images. In addition, the
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| 47 | clone operation saves all the differencing disk images of a snapshot. </p>
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| 48 | <p>You can also use the <userinput>VBoxManage clonevm</userinput> command to clone a VM. See <xref href="../cli_topics/vboxmanage-clonevm.dita"/>.</p>
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| 49 | </body>
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| 50 |
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| 51 | </topic>
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