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qm.adoc: add section about VM clones

This commit is contained in:
Dietmar Maurer 2016-12-29 16:54:58 +01:00
parent cf655d90a9
commit 9e55c76d89

59
qm.adoc
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@ -504,6 +504,65 @@ as long as all disk are on storages, which are defined on both hosts.
Then the migration will copy the disk over the network to the target host.
VM Templates, Copies and Clones
-------------------------------
[thumbnail="gui-qemu-full-clone.png"]
VM installation is usually done using an installation media (CD-ROM)
from the operation system vendor. Depending on the OS, this can be a
time consuming task one might want to avoid.
An easy way to deploy many VMs of the same type is to copy an existing
VM. We use the term 'clone' for such copies, and distinguish between
'linked' and 'full' clones.
Full Clone::
The result of such copy is an independent VM. The
new VM does not share any storage resources with the original.
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It is possible to select a *Target Storage*, so one can use this to
migrate a VM to a totally different storage. You can also change the
disk image *Format* if the storage driver supports several formats.
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NOTE: A full clone need to read and copy all VM image data. This is
usually much slower than creating a linked clone.
Linked Clone::
Modern storage drivers supports a way to generate fast linked
clones. Such a clone is a writable copy whose initial contents are the
same as the original data. Creating a linked clone is nearly
instantaneous, and initially consumes no additional space.
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They are called 'linked' because the new image still refers to the
original. Unmodified data blocks are read from the original image, but
modification are written (and afterwards read) from a new
location. This technique is called 'Copy-on-write'.
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This implies that the original is either a read-only 'snapshot', or a
read-only 'Template' VM. It is not possible to change the *Target
storage* for linked clones, because this is a storage internal
feature.
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NOTE: You cannot delete the original template or snapshot while
linked clones exists.
The *Target node* option allows you to create the new VM on a
different node. The only restriction is that the VM is on shared
storage, and that storage is also available on the target node.
It is possible to clone a specific *Snapshot*, which defaults to the
'current' VM data. This also means that the final copy does not
include any additional snapshots from the original VM.
To avoid resource conflicts, all network interface MAC addresses gets
randomized, and we generate a new 'UUID' for the VM BIOS (smbios1)
setting.
Managing Virtual Machines with `qm`
------------------------------------