virtualbox.org

Hi all,

I think I have this idea clear in my head, but I'm a virtualbox user, not a specialist by any stretch, and I figured it makes sense to run the idea by others and see if it makes sense, or if I'm missing something else obvious that would serve better.

There is an operating system that I'm forced to used from time to time for "transient" purposes. That is, I'll have a brief (up to one week) assignment that requires it. At the start of that assignment, I want to get a clean "up to date" VM with this OS, use it for a the week, then destroy it entirely. I will never store anything on VM. I do, however, want to be able to update it from time to time with the various updates it provides.

Here's my plan.

1) Keep a base installation as a VM, and never ever use this for any work.
2) At intervals, boot this base installation, and run the updates process, then shut it down
3) When I want to do a project, make a linked clone of the base, and use that
4) when I'm done with the project, delete the linked clone, and with it destroy all the weeks work (OK, some of the weeks work will have been pushed out to github, so I'm not quite as bonkers as I might seem!).

I think that's "obvious" and sensible, but does anyone disagree? Am I missing a better way?

Thanks for any comments,
Simon

Everything sounds good, except the linked clone idea. Use a full clone, not a linked clone. Creating a linked clone affects the template VM too, which is not what you want.

Ah, that probably explains why, when testing this, I wasn't able to delete the clone. That's very odd, but I guess it is what it is.

Thanks!

No, there would be nothing stopping you from deleting the clone. But there will be a current state container added to the original VM which you can't delete. The problem is that a linked clone requires the original VM to be frozen, so the new difference state in the original VM allows you to continue using it.

Whatever, linked clones are not good for your purpose, so I'd stick to more basic cloning.