hi all,

want to know if theres a way to create a scheduled task for esxi 6 or if i can ssh into the esxi host and create a cronjob

basically i want it to make a scheduled task so it can clone a vm, i know the free esxi cannot do a clone of a vm but i have found a way of doing this -

make sure you poweroff the vm first before proceeding

browse a datastore > create a folder under root > "server with a suffix of clone"

on the live server you just poweredoff copy the "vmx" and the "vmdk" files ie the virtual machine and the virtual disk and paste it in the folder you created

open up the new folder > right click "vmx" > add to inventory

power on the vm (if you get a notice just say "already copied it")

boom, job done

now is there anyway to automate this and make a schedule for it

many thanks

rob

I think you should regard your VMWare ESXi server as something that you should not want to tarnish / pollute / potentially b0rk with non-VMWare custom modifications but use the VIX API to remotely "drive" ops?..

job done

make sure vm tools are installed on all your guests before you continue, otherwise you cant shutdown and power on your guests via cmd

-

vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown 22

sleep 20

mkdir /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole_clone

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole/guacamole.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole_clone/guacamole.vmdk

cp /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole/guacamole.vmx /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole_clone

vim-cmd solo/registervm /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guacamole_clone/guacamole.vmx

vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on 22

-

i changed it abit, i had to put in a sleep command as the guest was still shutting down and it locked the vmdk file and it failed

obviously you cant create a clone of a live vm as it gives an error saying cant copy vmdk as it is locked and the cloning process just doesnt work

you can however create snapshots of vms while in a live state, if i created a snapshot of my live vm can i copy that snapshot to my clone vm?