Tech Notes

When I manually-clone a VM in VMWare, there are a few things I tend to have to remember. More of a memo to myself, this post will be edited or refer to later posts as necessary. I use this because I forget, and google finds my own stuff as quickly as someone else’s…

1. Install a new VM
2. Choose to install from another VM
3. Choose to duplicate, not share nor steal the disk(s)
4. Search for the Virtual Disk.vmdk file to copy (if it’s not found, is the prototype VM stopped?)
5. wait for the install to complete
6. edit the new MAC into the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file
7. check for a butchered /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file (delete the ones from the previous MAC)

From there, the new clone acts like an independent system. I usually pop into my router and hard-set the MACAddr’s name so that the DDNS gives me the IP from the hostname when the DHCP dishes out an address. That avoids the DNS delay that most people kinda forget/dont-care in PTR lookup at connection time in, oh, everything.