VM Clone

A VM clone is a copy of a virtual machine. After the cloning operation, the clone VM runs as a separate virtual machine.

The clone.kubevirt.io API Group defines resources for cloning KubeVirt VMs.

Creating a VM Clone

Under the hood, the clone API relies upon Snapshot & Restore APIs. Therefore, in order to be able to use the clone API, please see VM Snapshot & Restore pre-requisites.

In order to initiate cloning, a VirtualMachineClone object (CRD) needs to be created on the cluster. An example for such an object is:

kind: VirtualMachineClone

apiVersion: "clone.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1"

metadata:

spec:

# source & target definitions

source:

apiGroup: kubevirt.io

kind: VirtualMachine

target:

apiGroup: kubevirt.io

kind: VirtualMachine

Apply it and see the clone progress:

kubectl get vmclone -w

NAME PHASE SOURCEVIRTUALMACHINE TARGETVIRTUALMACHINE

clone-fedora-1 fedora-vm-1 fedora-vm-1-clone

clone-fedora-1 SnapshotInProgress fedora-vm-1 fedora-vm-1-clone

clone-fedora-1 RestoreInProgress fedora-vm-1 fedora-vm-1-clone

clone-fedora-1 Succeeded fedora-vm-1 fedora-vm-1-clone

Source & Target

The source and target indicate the source/target API group, kind and name. A few important notes:

Currently, the only supported kinds are VirtualMachine (of kubevirt.io api group) and VirtualMachineSnapshot ( of snapshot.kubevirt.io api group), but more types are expected to be supported in the future. See "future roadmap" below for more info.
The target name is optional. If unspecified, the clone controller will generate a name for the target automatically.
The target and source must reside in the same namespace.

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