[pve-devel] vmware workstation clone review

[Alexandre DERUMIER]

I have done tests with vmware workstation (vsphere coming this week), to see how cloning works, so:

in the vmware world, a template is simply a vm with a template flag=on.
So they are no special template repository location. 

When template flag is enabled, you can't start anymore the vm, only cloning it (full clone or linked clone).
You can't delete the vm in template mode. (this is a protection)

For vmware workstation,

vmware snapshot/clone are read/write, like sheepdog,rbd,nexenta. (not like qcow2 readonly)

you always clone from a vm snapshot (offline vm-snapshot, without vmstate), but this snapshot is displayed in the snapshot tree.

You can clone from the snapshot tree, 
http://www.malaysiavm.com/images/snapshot.jpg
or right click on the vm (then you have a wizard, and you need to choose a vm snapshot to clone)
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/img/w_clone_source_template.png
You can also clone from you are here, so a snapshot is take automaticly.

you can do clone of clone of clone.

When trying to deleting a parent vm with clones attached, you have a warning "be carefull ,vm have linked clone,this will destroy all clone...)

When trying to deleting a vm snapshot with vm with clones attached, you have a warning "be carefull ,vm have linked clone,this will destroy all clone...)



I'll do more more test with vsphere this week, I think it's a little different (from gui side), but underlying implemention should be same.

Regards,

Alexandre