Importing Virtual Machines and Snapshots to other Hosts

[J.Arnold]

Hello.

I am trying to share Virtual Machine with Snapshots on multiple Hosts. Most of these hosts will be Windows 7, but a few could be Mac OSX or Windows XP. I have attempted to share the Virtual Machines three ways. 1) Export appliance to .ovf 2) export appliance to .ova 3) Grab the entire machine folder and transfer it to the other machine.

Every time I was able to successfully import, but my snapshots weren't there. Can anyone provide me with a few pointers and where to go next? I am primarily using Virtual Box for snapshots, to create different configurations of the same Operating System. Details on my Virtual Machine are as follows.

VirtualBox 4.1.6
Virtual Machine - Windows XP with 6 snapshots
Virtual Disk - 10GB vdi (dynamic)

Any help is greatly appreciated. I have searched through various forums, found similar issues, but no solid answers. Thanks for the help!

[mpack]

Copying the VM folder is the way to go. Your lack of success probably means that your VM is not yet in v4 format (merely using v4 is not enough). Hence, clone the VM first using the GUI cloning feature introduced in v4.1.0, then move the clone folder to the new host, use the Machine|Add feature there.

[J.Arnold]

Copying the VM folder is the way to go. Your lack of success probably means that your VM is not yet in v4 format (merely using v4 is not enough). Hence, clone the VM first using the GUI cloning feature introduced in v4.1.0, then move the clone folder to the new host, use the Machine|Add feature there.

Thanks for the info. Would there be any dependencies on the Hosts hardware? I (believe) I tried this once before, but I was getting CPU mismatch errors.

Appreciate the help!

[Technologov]

Yes, few.

Use 32-bit guest OS, and disable hardware VT (in VM settings). Also disable 3D acceleration. Try to avoid 'bridging', but use NAT network instead.
This will make your VMs truly compatible across all hosts.

[mpack]

CPU mismatch errors

CPU mismatch errors only happen with a VM which has been suspended instead of properly shut down. Never make any significant changes to the VM environment while a VM is still running, though suspended - and changing hosts for sure qualifies. As does upgrading the VBox software.

In any case I seem to recall that the clone feature refuses to work if you haven't shut down the guest: I'm not sure because I never use suspend.

[J.Arnold]

OK, I set up the image and snapshots as described above, transferred to a new host machine and things seem to be working much better, including snapshots! Thanks for the help!

One thing I did find last night is that my Video Adapter and Base System Device drivers are missing. It seems that the 'Install Guest Additions' installed drivers for both of these devices. My question is, can I Install Guest Additions for all of my Snap Shots or will I potentially run into issues when sharing the images across other hosts?

[mpack]

One thing I did find last night is that my Video Adapter and Base System Device drivers are missing. It seems that the 'Install Guest Additions' installed drivers for both of these devices. My question is, can I Install Guest Additions for all of my Snap Shots or will I potentially run into issues when sharing the images across other hosts?

I don't understand the question. A snapshot is not an independant disk, it's just a marker indicating a restore point. When you install guest additions they update the current state, just like everything else you do in a VM. If you revert to an earlier snapshot the GAs will be lost. Alternatively if you create a new snapshot then the new current state will inherit the GAs.

[J.Arnold]

One thing I did find last night is that my Video Adapter and Base System Device drivers are missing. It seems that the 'Install Guest Additions' installed drivers for both of these devices. My question is, can I Install Guest Additions for all of my Snap Shots or will I potentially run into issues when sharing the images across other hosts?

I don't understand the question. A snapshot is not an independant disk, it's just a marker indicating a restore point. When you install guest additions they update the current state, just like everything else you do in a VM. If you revert to an earlier snapshot the GAs will be lost. Alternatively if you create a new snapshot then the new current state will inherit the GAs.

Let me clarify a bit, it seems that it would be beneficial to have Guest Additions install the missing drivers for each of my snapshots. So what I plan on doing is restoring a snapshot (snapshot a), installing GA, and then creating a new snapshot (snapshot ax) and repeating for all of the snapshots I have created (snapshot b,c,d, etc.). So then all of my machine states will have GA installed. My question is, if I do install GA on all of the machine states, still following the guidance you provided above, will I run into issues transferring the machine and snapshots to other hosts?

Thanks!

[mpack]

Oh, I see. You are using branching snapshots instead of using them as simple restore points. Each branch will have its own current state, otherwise what I said earlier still applies.

I hope you realize that this arrangement is going to be very prone to corruption, and waste a lot of disk space. Independant clones would be far more robust, with each clone capable of being individually updated, resized and compacted.

[J.Arnold]

Oh, I see. You are using branching snapshots instead of using them as simple restore points. Each branch will have its own current state, otherwise what I said earlier still applies.

I hope you realize that this arrangement is going to be very prone to corruption, and waste a lot of disk space. Independant clones would be far more robust, with each clone capable of being individually updated, resized and compacted.

Thank you for the clarification. It sounds like the most ideal option would be to trash the snapshot method and go with individual clones for each configuration (i.e. convert snapshot a, b, c, etc... to clone a, b, c, etc.)? If it would minimize disk space and corruption issues I would be all for making those changes. If I did go this route would copying the entire VM folder still be the way to go? Or can I export the machine?

Thanks!

[mpack]

If I did go this route would copying the entire VM folder still be the way to go? Or can I export the machine?

You would use clone feature of the GUI, as mentioned earlier.

You should really forget the export/import feature. IMHO that is a legacy feature now lacking a good purpose, unless you desperately need to export a lot of VMs to a PC running VMWare, or the reverse.