How to clone VMs on VMware ESXi

In This blog we will learn how to clone VMs or Servers in VMware ESXi.If we don't have vCenter, VMware ESXi allow us to clone VMs / Servers on its web-interface.

 In this process it will take a little time to copy and clone the VMss.

 Note: Before processing further, Please take the snapshot backup and turn off the target VM / Server.

1. Access vSphere web-client, Click Storage in the left side, and then click Datastore browser.

2. In popup Click on create a folder for example: "dev-clone" and provide any name to copy the data there.

3. Folder is created, Now we will copy the data,

4. Select the folder which you want to clone the VM and select the .vmx file and .vmdk file and click on copy tab and copy it in to newly created folder dev-clone.

Complete this copy process one by one .vmx file and .vmdk file

It will take little time to copy depends on your data size.

If successfully copied now we can move next process to created clone VM.

Now we will created VM from copied folder.

5. On dashboard Click Virtual Machine and Click Create/ Register VM.

6. On select Creation type page, select Register an existing virtual machine, and Click Next.

7. Now on select VMs for registration, click Select one or more virtual machines, a datastore or a directory. 

Select the newly created folder dev-clone where we have copied the data. Click Next and Finish.

8. Back to Virtual Machines, now you can see there is one newly Created VM with the same name as the old one. That’s because the name comes from the .vmx file. You can right-click the VM and Rename it.

9. Now you can power on the newly created VM. while you powering on there will be a popup window select I copied  click Finish/Answer.

We have successfully clone VM in VMware ESXi on web Client.

Thanks for the reading my Blog.