How to Clone an Existing Virtual Machine in VMware Workstation
In any production environment where there are hundreds of virtual machines running on the physical computers it becomes quite tedious for the administrators to create a new virtual machine and install guest operating system on it. Also this practice consumes a lot of time and human utilization which might not be a cost-effective approach for any organization. VMware workstation however now has cloning feature using which administrators can create the exact clone of any existing virtual machine. This saves considerable amount of their time as the process of cloning a virtual machine takes no more than 15-20 min. However there are few things which are to be kept in mind before cloning any existing virtual machine.
- A virtual machine can only be cloned when it is powered off. That is a running virtual machine cannot be cloned at all.
- Users manually need to change the logical IP addresses and computer names of the cloned machines.
An administrator of a virtual network infrastructure you can clone a turned off virtual machine by following the steps given below:
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In the VMware console window in the left Sidebar choose the appropriate virtual machine from Favorites list.
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On the menu bar click on VM and from the appeared menu choose Clone.
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On appeared welcome page click on Next button and click on Next button on Clone Source page as well.
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On Clone Type page choose Create a full clone radio button and click on Next button.
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On the next page specify the name of the cloned virtual machine and the location where it will be saved.
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Once done click on Finish button to start the cloning process.
