Clone

Compact

To compact a virtual machine, ready for cloning, log into your guest operating system (in this case linux - the commands for Windows will obviously be different):

dd if=/dev/zero of=junk
sync
rm junk

Note: This command will increase the size of your vdi file (including the compacted version), but if you archive the file… it will be smaller.

cd "C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox"
VBoxManage.exe modifyvdi c:\repository\virtualbox\vdi\toybox.vdi compact

Clone

Note: You might like to compact (see above) the guest operating system before performing a clone…

You should only make copies of virtual disk images using the utility supplied with VirtualBox, VBoxManage clonevdi. This is because VirtualBox assigns a unique identity number (UUID) to each disk image, which is also stored inside the image, and will refuse to work with two images that use the same number.

cd "C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox"
VBoxManage.exe clonevdi c:\repo\virtualbox\vdi\toybox.vdi c:\temp\toybox-2008-01-13.vdi

Import

To import the virtual machine onto the other workstation:

  • Copy the image to the vdi folder e.g.

    c:\repository\virtualbox\vdi\toybox.vdi

  • Select File, Virtual Disk Manager and Add the image…

  • From the main menu, create a New virtual machine and choose Existing for the Boot Hard Disk…

Note: If networking does not work see Issues, Network - After Clone…