How to "duplicate" a VM?

A

Angelo Schneider

Junior Member
Hi,

I would like to have a base VM and when I install a new one I liek to duplicate the base one and only install new additional software on it.

How can I do that?

Regards,
Angelo
 
Angelo,

I haven't tried it yet, but my guess is you setup a new VM (call it MASTER or something), install windows or other OS, make it up-to-date with patches etc then stop the VM.

To create new VMs, you, firstly copy the MASTER.hdd file to a new subdirectory of ~/Library/Parallels which you will name EXACTLY the same as your new VM, example winxp01. Then rename MASTER.hdd to winxp01.hdd (in our example) and proceed to create a new VM using the Parallels GUI selecting Custom.

However instead of creating a new VM you select Use an existing hard disk image and select your newly created/copied winxp01.hdd file and er...Bob's your uncle.

Be careful to verify that all the paths are correct in you new VM definition when you create it an all should be fine.

There are other things you want to be aware of, for example if your master has a fixed IP address it might cause problems if you create more than one copy of the master, or you could have problems with the netBIOS name etc. Best way to avoid that is to do a SYSPREP before shutting down your master VM.

I do this all the time with VMware ESX server and it is the nuts...about 5 mins to setup and install a new 2003 domain controller can't be beaten :)

Edited to fix a couple of typos - oops!
 
Angelo Schneider said:
Hi,

I would like to have a base VM and when I install a new one I liek to duplicate the base one and only install new additional software on it.

How can I do that?

Regards,
Angelo
Click to expand...

This depends on what you want:

If you just want to "snapshot" the HDD image and do a trial install of some software that you cdan then roll back, all you have to do is shutdown the guest OS (don't suspend), make a copy of the PW HDD file for that VM, and restart and install the software. If you later decide to roll-back, just delete the current HDD file and rename the saved copy back.

This is, in effect, a poor-mans version of the VMware snapshot system, but rather less efficient in the use of disk space.

If, otoh, you want to clone an existing VM and run two copies, you will need to follow the procedure of the other poster. Be aware, however, that cloning of XP is more complex since you also need to alter other per-machine values, such as Mac addresses, machine SID values etc etc. All very nasty.

--Tim
 
I wonder if any thought been given to using/allowing relative paths in the .pvs files. This would help not only with copying VMs, but moving them to a new location in the tree as well. (You could just put the .pvs and images into a single folder, and even tag the thing as a bundle so that the Finder would treat it as a file.)
 
dweebert said:
I wonder if any thought been given to using/allowing relative paths in the .pvs files. This would help not only with copying VMs, but moving them to a new location in the tree as well. (You could just put the .pvs and images into a single folder, and even tag the thing as a bundle so that the Finder would treat it as a file.)
Click to expand...

Yes, I think that's a flaw in the PW VM configuration at the moment. I don't like all those long fixed path names in the config; too fragile. IMHO each VM should be a bundle so that it can be treated like a document. If I recall iEmulator does this.

--Tim
 
veggiedude said:
I haven't tried it, but under the VM menu is "Clone VM". Maybe this will do what you want?
Click to expand...
I tried the other solution (copying & renaming) that did not work.

But this option works flawlessly.
 
drtimhill said:
Yes, I think that's a flaw in the PW VM configuration at the moment. I don't like all those long fixed path names in the config; too fragile. IMHO each VM should be a bundle so that it can be treated like a document. If I recall iEmulator does this.

--Tim
Click to expand...
Can be a lot of pain man, I tried a ShortCut working fine currently with LongPathTool
 
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