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Cloning a VM in VMWare ESXi 4.0 without vCenter

By edwin - Posted on 16 November 2009

VMWare ESXi is a FREE bare-metal hypervisor that lacks the plethora of management tools found in the commercial version. That being the case, you can still find some powerful yet hidden features behind the command line. If you feel comfortable at the command line, VMWare ESXi will not disappoint you.

One of the hidden features is the act of cloning a virtual machine. This is one of the places virtual machines shine in comparison to the traditional act of building a server. You take the time to build parent VMs that are than cloned every time you need a new server. I loved the reaction I got from a developer who asked for a server and I delivered his IP Address and login within 15 minutes.

In VMWare ESXi, the documentation directs cloning to VMWare vCenter Server (formally called VMWare Virtual Center). Unfortunately for me, this costs money and I can't afford it. If you would like to clone virtual machine on an ESXi server without the help of vCenter here are the instructions to do so.

Log onto the ESXi host server via SSH. If you have not yet enable SSH, follow the instructions here.

Create a directory for the new guest VM.
mkdir /vmfs/volumes/datastore/destvm

Next, run the vmkfstools command to clone the VM to the destination folder
vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore/sourcevm/sourcevm.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore/destvm/destvm.vmdk
Enter the above command in one line.
This step takes awhile. You will see something similar to the following.
```
Destination disk format: VMFS zeroedthick
Cloning disk '/vmfs/volumes/datastore/sourcevm/sourcevm.vmdk'....
Clone: 100% done.
```

Now, go to the vSphere client and run File > New > Virtual Machine...

Select Custom and click Next.

Enter a Name for your destination virtual machine and click Next.

Choose a datastore and click Next at the Datastore dialog box.

Select the appropriate Virtual Machine Version and click Next. (In my case, the Parent VM was created in ESX 3.5i so I had to choose Version 4)

Select the appropriate Guest Operating System: and click Next.

Select the appropriate Number of virtual processors: and click Next.

Configure the Memory Size and click Next at the Memory dialog box.

Choose the correct settings for your network under the “Network” Dialog box.

For the SCSI Controller select the same controller you choose in the Parent VM. If in doubt, take a look at the Parent VM’s *.vmdk file and look at the ddb.adapterType variable.
```
grep ddb.adapterType sourcevm.vmdk
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
```