source: vbox/trunk/doc/manual/en_US/man_VBoxManage-clonemedium.xml@ 106001

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<refentry id="vboxmanage-clonemedium" lang="en">
  <refentryinfo>
    <pubdate>$Date: 2024-09-10 11:15:32 +0000 (Tue, 10 Sep 2024) $</pubdate>
    <title>VBoxManage clonemedium</title>
  </refentryinfo>

  <refmeta>
    <refentrytitle>VBoxManage-clonemedium</refentrytitle>
    <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
  </refmeta>

  <refnamediv>
    <refname>VBoxManage-clonemedium</refname>
    <refpurpose>create a clone of a medium</refpurpose>
    <refclass>&product-name;</refclass>
  </refnamediv>

  <refsynopsisdiv>
    <cmdsynopsis id="synopsis-vboxmanage-clonemedium">
<!-- The 'id' is mandatory and must start with 'synopsis-'. -->
      <command>VBoxManage clonemedium</command>
      <group choice="req">
        <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>uuid</replaceable></arg>
        <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>source-medium</replaceable></arg>
      </group>
      <group choice="req">
        <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>uuid</replaceable></arg>
        <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>target-medium</replaceable></arg>
      </group>
      <group>
        <arg choice="plain">disk</arg>
        <arg choice="plain">dvd</arg>
        <arg choice="plain">floppy</arg>
      </group>
      <arg>--existing</arg>
      <arg>--format=<group choice="plain">
          <arg choice="plain">VDI</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">VMDK</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">VHD</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">RAW</arg>
          <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>other</replaceable></arg>
        </group></arg>
      <arg rep="repeat" role="compact">--variant=<group choice="plain">
          <arg choice="plain">Standard</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">Fixed</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">Split2G</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">Stream</arg>
          <arg choice="plain">ESX</arg>
      </group></arg> <!-- Value can be repated with comma separator. Difficult to express with docbook. -->
    </cmdsynopsis>
  </refsynopsisdiv>

  <refsect1 id="vboxmanage-clonemedium-description">
    <title>Description</title>
    <para>
      The <command>VBoxManage clonemedium</command> command enables you
      to clone an existing medium (virtual disk, DVD, or floppy), which
      is typically an image file. Only the Universally Unique Identifier
      (UUID) differs between the original image and the cloned image.
    </para>
    <para>
      You can use the Virtual Media Manager to transfer the cloned image
      to another host system or reimport it into &product-name;. See
      <xref linkend="virtual-media-manager" /> and <xref linkend="cloningvdis" />.
    </para>
    <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><replaceable>uuid</replaceable> | <replaceable>source-medium</replaceable></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Specifies the UUID or the absolute or relative pathname of
            the source medium to clone. You can specify the UUID of the
            medium only if it is registered. Use the <command>VBoxManage
            list hdds</command> command to list registered images.
          </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><replaceable>uuid</replaceable> | <replaceable>target-medium</replaceable></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Specifies the UUID or the absolute or relative pathname of
            the target (clone) medium. You can specify the UUID of the
            target medium only if it is registered. Use the
            <command>VBoxManage list hdds</command> command to list
            registered images.
          </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><literal>disk</literal> | <literal>dvd</literal> | <literal>floppy</literal></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Specifies the type of the medium to clone. Valid values are
            <literal>disk</literal>, <literal>dvd</literal>, and
            <literal>floppy</literal>. The default value is
            <literal>disk</literal>.
          </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--existing</option></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Performs the clone operation by overwriting an existing
            target medium. The result is that only the portion of the
            source medium that fits into the existing target medium is
            copied.
          </para><para>
            If the target medium is smaller than the source, only the
            portion of the source medium up to the size of the target
            medium is copied.
          </para><para>
            If the target medium is larger than the source, the
            remaining part of the target medium is unchanged.
          </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--format</option></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Specifies the file format of the target medium if it differs
            from the format of the source medium. Valid values are
            <literal>VDI</literal>, <literal>VMDK</literal>,
            <literal>VHD</literal>, <literal>RAW</literal>, and
            <replaceable>other</replaceable>.
          </para><remark>
            What file formats can <replaceable>other</replaceable> be?
          </remark></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--variant=Standard | Fixed | Split2G | Stream | ESX [,...]</option></term>
        <listitem><para>
            Specifies the file format variant for the target medium,
            which is a comma-separated list of variants. Following are
            the valid values:
          </para><itemizedlist>
            <listitem><para>
                <literal>Standard</literal> is the default disk image
                type, which has a dynamically allocated file size.
              </para></listitem>
            <listitem><para>
                <literal>Fixed</literal> uses a disk image that has a
                fixed file size.
              </para></listitem>
            <listitem><para>
                <literal>Split2G</literal> indicates that the disk image
                is split into 2GB segments. This value is for VMDK only.
              </para></listitem>
            <listitem><para>
                <literal>Stream</literal> optimizes the disk image for
                downloading. This value is for VMDK only.
              </para></listitem>
            <listitem><para>
                <literal>ESX</literal> is used for some VMWare products.
                This value is for VMDK only.
              </para></listitem>
          </itemizedlist><para>
            Note that not all variant combinations are valid. Specifying
            incompatible variant values in the list will produce an
            error message.
          </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>
    <note>
      <para>
        For compatibility with earlier versions of &product-name;, you
        can use the <command>clonevdi</command> and
        <command>clonehd</command> commands instead of the
        <command>clonemedium</command> command.
      </para>
    </note>
  </refsect1>

  <refsect1 id="vboxmanage-clonemedium-examples">
    <title>Examples</title>
    <remark role="help-scope" condition="GLOBAL" />
    <para>
      The following command creates a clone of the
      <filename>disk01.vdi</filename> disk image file. The clone is
      called <filename>disk02.vdi</filename>.
    </para>
<screen>$ VBoxManage clonemedium disk01.vdi disk02.vdi</screen>
    <para>
      The following command creates a clone of the
      <filename>disk01.vdi</filename> disk image file. The clone is in
      VMDK format and is called <filename>disk02.vmdk</filename>.
    </para>
<screen>$ VBoxManage clonemedium disk01.vdi disk02.vmdk --format VMDK</screen>
  </refsect1>

  <refsect1 id="vboxmanage-clonemedium-see-also">
    <title>See Also</title>
    <para>
      <xref linkend="vboxmanage-list" />
    </para>
  </refsect1>
</refentry>