Copy of Virtual Machine...

[paul_]

I am having a problem when I copy a virtual machine (entire folder) and start it the copy. I am running Workstation 6.0 and I have SuSe Linux v10.0 installed as the Guest OS, WinXP as the host.

The image I have runs quite well, and has three network interfaces - eth0,eth1, and eth2 - all bridged. The problem arises when I attempt to copy the image, and play that copy - the network interfaces are given different devices inside of the guest OS - eth0, eth3, ethX, ethY - depending on the copy. I was under the impression that making a copy of an image wouldn't change how the guest os perceives the virtual hardware it is running on - in this case that isn't true.

Am I doing something incorrectly? Is there a way to avoid this?

Thanks,

-Paul

[oreeh]

When you start a copied VM you usually get a prompt to change the UUID.

This changes the MAC address as well and this triggers the detection of new NICs in the VM (unfortunately most Linux distros hardcode the MAC address in the init scripts).

Either configure a static MAC address or keep the UUID or modify the init scripts

When using the first and second approach you have to make sure that the master and the copy don't run at the same time.

[paul_]

I do not get prompted for the generation of the UUID since I'm using the Vix API to power-on the copy. I suppose that the mac address generation still occurs behind the scenes?

Thanks for the info!

-Paul

[oreeh · Accepted solution]

I'm pretty sure (I never used the VIX API) the VIX API changes the MAC - you can prevent the UUID change by adding

uuid.action = "keep"

to the VMX file.