I have a qcow2 file that I'd like to use to create a new VM. How is this done in the Virtual Machine Manager GUI (or from the command line if that's the only way)?

Thanks

A qcow2 file is a virtual filesystem. It can sometimes be converted to a different type of virtual filesystem using qemu-image tools like convert. It doesn't always work for me but not sure why not. Then you'd have to import it to a vm. Sometimes you can convert it to a raw image and then just use it like one would use a dd'ed image.

One can boot the system using qemu and then use any standard copy/clone method to move it to a new vm blank drive.


It may be possible that some vm's can fully support a qcow2 file format that you could then use to image off to a native format.

When you start to create a new machine with Virt Manager, one of the choices for the installation source is, "Import existing disk image." It works just fine. You do have to select a compatible OS type, etc., so that the default configuration settings can be reasonable.

what you are looking for is virt-install --import

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