Cloning a Virtual Machine

You can create a full copy or a linked copy of an existing VM. This copy is called a clone. You might use a cloned VM to experiment with a VM configuration, to test different guest OS levels, or to back up a VM.

To clone a VM:

  1. Ensure the VM you want to clone is not running.

  2. Click the VM name in the machine list, and then select Clone from the Machine menu.

  3. Enter the following details for the clone.
    • Name: A name for the cloned machine.
    • Path: Choose a location for the cloned virtual machine, otherwise uses the default machines folder.
    • MAC Address Policy: Specifies whether to retain network card MAC addresses when cloning the VM.

      The Generate New MAC Addresses For All Network Adapters value assigns a new MAC address to each network card during cloning. This is the default setting. This is the best option when both the source VM and the cloned VM must operate on the same network. Other values enable you to retain the existing MAC addresses in the cloned VM.

    • Keep Disk Names: Retains the disk image names when cloning the VM.
    • Keep Hardware UUIDs: Retains the hardware universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) when cloning the VM.
  4. Click Next. The Clone Type page is displayed.
  5. The Clone Type option specifies whether to create a clone that is linked to the source VM or to create a fully independent clone:
    • Full Clone: Copies all dependent disk images to the new VM folder. A full clone can operate fully without the source VM.
    • Linked Clone: Creates new differencing disk images based on the source VM disk images. If you select the current state of the source VM as the clone point, creates a new snapshot.
  6. Click Next. If your VM has snapshots and you chose Full Clone, use the Snapshots page to select the parts of the snapshot tree to clone with the VM.
    • Current Machine State: Clones the current state of the VM. Snapshots are not included.
    • Everything: Clones the current machine state and all its snapshots.

  7. Click Finish to start the clone operation.

The duration of the clone operation depends on the size and number of attached disk images. In addition, the clone operation saves all the differencing disk images of a snapshot.

You can also use the VBoxManage clonevm command to clone a VM. See .