VMware vSphere SDKs and Tools 8.0

8.0 7.0 6.7 6.5

Cloning a Virtual Machine

A clone is a copy of a virtual machine. The main difference between a virtual machine and a clone is that the
VirtualMachine.config.template
 property is set to
true
.
You can create a clone in one of the following ways:
  • If you no longer need a specific instance of a virtual machine, but you want to use the virtual machine’s configuration as a template, use the
    VirtualMachine.MarkAsTemplate
     method. This method sets the
    config.template
     property to
    true
    , and disables the virtual machine.
  • If you want to use an existing virtual machine as a template, but keep the virtual machine, call the
    VirtualMachine.CloneVM_Task
     method to create a duplicate of the virtual machine.
If you use the
VirtualMachine.CloneVM_Task
 method, you can customize certain attributes of the clone by specifying them in the
VirtualMachineCloneSpec
 data object you pass in when you call the method.
The following code fragment from
VMClone.java
 illustrates how you can customize a clone and specify a new location for it.
Cloning a Virtual Machine
VirtualMachineCloneSpec cloneSpec = new VirtualMachineCloneSpec();
VirtualMachineRelocateSpec relocSpec = new VirtualMachineRelocateSpec();
cloneSpec.setLocation(relocSpec);
cloneSpec.setPowerOn(false);
cloneSpec.setTemplate(false);

String clonedName = cloneName;

ManagedObjectReference cloneTask
            = service.cloneVM_Task(vmRef, vmFolderRef, clonedName, cloneSpec);
The
VirtualMachine.CloneVM_Task
 method takes the source virtual machine, target folder, name, and
VirtualMachineCloneSpec
 as arguments.
The
VirtualMachineCloneSpec
 data object includes the location, power state, and whether the clone should be a template. The location, in turn, is a
VirtualMachineRelocateSpec
 data object that specifies the target location (datastore, disk, and host or resource pool) and any transformation to be performed on the disk.

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