make a vm from a live system
make a vm from a live system
I have a linux machine that I sometimes use for testing and development. I no longer need it to exist on an actual pc but still need to use it from time to time. I would like to somehow clone it or copy it to a virtual machine which I can then run in virtualbox when I need to use it. Is there a utility for converting an existing system into a virtualbox vm or does anyone have any suggestions on how I can do this?
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Perryg
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Re: make a vm from a live system
Several programs will do what you need. Clonezilla, Acronis, Etc.
Re: make a vm from a live system
Interesting, but how would I do it? Do I make a backup of the existing machine, create a new VM and restore the backup to the VM?
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Perryg
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Re: make a vm from a live system
That's what I would do. But there is a step that you do to include the MBR that you don't want to forget. Usually included in a full true image.
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mpack
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Re: make a vm from a live system
If you use Acronis TrueImage then you tick options to back up selected elements of the disk, the default would I think have everything ticked, i.e. MBR and each partition. That ensures a true, full disk image (the classic mistake is image just the one partition using dd).
In an ideal world you boot up off the Acronis CD and image the PC drive to a big USB drive. That gives you an image you can restore into a VM.
I talk about Acronis because that's what I've used successfully. It's commercial of course, though cheap for what it does IMHO. CloneZilla is free but I have no personal experience with it.
If the old disk is small enough, and/or your USB drive is large enough then another possibility is to use the Linux native "dd" cmd to image the PC drive to the USB drive (you must make sure to image the entire drive, not just a partition). Call the image something.RAW, and then clone that raw file using CloneVDI, which creates a VDI you can use immediately in a VM. For CloneVDI see the sticky in Windows Hosts: CloneVDI is a Windows GUI app hence you will need to borrow a Windows PC for the conversion, or else run it under Wine. Use the "Compact" option to ensure that that the VDI is a manageable size.
In an ideal world you boot up off the Acronis CD and image the PC drive to a big USB drive. That gives you an image you can restore into a VM.
I talk about Acronis because that's what I've used successfully. It's commercial of course, though cheap for what it does IMHO. CloneZilla is free but I have no personal experience with it.
If the old disk is small enough, and/or your USB drive is large enough then another possibility is to use the Linux native "dd" cmd to image the PC drive to the USB drive (you must make sure to image the entire drive, not just a partition). Call the image something.RAW, and then clone that raw file using CloneVDI, which creates a VDI you can use immediately in a VM. For CloneVDI see the sticky in Windows Hosts: CloneVDI is a Windows GUI app hence you will need to borrow a Windows PC for the conversion, or else run it under Wine. Use the "Compact" option to ensure that that the VDI is a manageable size.