There is a lot of host software to use to run a virtual server. We use an open source copy called Proxmox. It does the job. It does everything we need, and is platform independent as it uses a web console. So we can run it under linux.

I need to clone an existing virtual machine, which is luckily very easy in proxmox.

Login using ssh as root onto the server
The VM Disks(or virtual hard drives) are usually located in /var/lib/vz/images/. If you have more that one hard drive like I do, it will be /var/lib/vz/DRIVE/images. In my case /var/lib/vz/sdd/images.
vmserver:/var/lib/vz/sdd/images# dir -hl
total 28K
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K May 23 09:14 113
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Mar 18 09:08 201
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Mar 18 09:52 2012
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K May 31 09:57 2013
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K May 27 10:50 501
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K May 21 06:56 502
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K May 27 10:51 503

The config files are located in /etc/qemu-server/

So to clone an existing vm do the following:

• Login to the web interface and locate the vm. Stop it. Look at the VMID if the virtual machine
• Go back to the ssh console and locate it, and then copy it:

vmserver:/var/lib/vz/sdd/images# cp -r 2013/ 2014


• Once it has been copied, go into that VMID directory and change the file to the new vmid:

vmserver:/var/lib/vz/sdd/images/2014# dir
vm-2013-disk-1.raw
vmserver:/var/lib/vz/sdd/images/2014# mv vm-2013-disk-1.raw vm-2014-disk-1.raw
vmserver:/var/lib/vz/sdd/images/2014# dir
vm-2014-disk-1.raw


• Once it is finished copying, you need to goto the config file and locate the config file for that vm. Goto /etc/qemu-server/. Again make a copy of that vm config file with the same number as the clone

vmserver:/etc/qemu-server# cp 2013.conf 2014.conf


• After copying it, you need to edit the information in the file. I have changed it to read the following:

name: clone vm
ide2: none,media=cdrom
vlan0: e1000=9E:16:98:C1:86:B8
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: other
ide0: VZ2:2014/vm-2014-disk-1.raw
memory: 1000
sockets: 2
boot: cd
freeze: 0
cpuunits: 1000
acpi: 1
kvm: 1
onboot: 1
cores: 2


• Basically, Change the name of the vm, the vlan0 address and the ide0 should be same as the clone vm

ALWAYS remember to change the mac adress of vlan0, else it may cause issues in windows.

Start the vm up again and change the ip address of the machine. All should work then and you have a vm