VMware Hot Clone of an Existing System

This article describes how to create a VMware virtual machine from an existing live (Windows) system.
The same process should work with Linux but I've not tested it yet.

Starting the Client
1. Open a Remote Desktop session to ecsvm-admin.ecs.soton.ac.uk and login as ecs2000\administrator
2. Start the VmWare Converter Standalone Client on ecsvm-admin.  Start --> All Programs --> VMWare --> Converter Standalone Client
3. Select "Connect to local Server" and click ok.
4. The client software should start Happy

Creating the VM
1. Click the "Convert Machine" button  (towards the top left)
2. Select the "A Remote machine" radio button
3. Enter the IP address of the machine to be cloned
4. Enter the user ID and password of an Administrator on the machine being cloned
5. Click Next
6. You should see a prompt asking if you want to "Automatically uninstall" the agent software when the clone has finished. Select the option and click Yes.
7. It'll now wait while the client agent is installed.

8. Next you're prompted for the VMware Virtual Infrastructure details:
Server=ecsvm-admin.ecs.soton.ac.uk
User Name=ecs2000\administrator
 9. You should now see a view of our VI Infrastructure:
a. Click server "ecsvm-infra1.ecs.soton.ac.uk"
b. Select one of the infrastore1 disk volumes for the datastore
c. Type the virtual machine name you want to use (normally just the host name and not the FQDN)

10. Click next
11. You now get a chance to configure the VM "hardware" and select which disks to clone etc
12 Click Next

13. Click finish and the clone should start.


14 After the clone has finished you need to make sure the VM is connected to the correct virtual network:
Using the Vsphere client right click on the VM and click edit settings.
Click the network adapter, choose the correct network in the list box and click OK.
15. Install/Upgrade VMware tools:
Using vSphere client right click on the VM and click Guest --> Install/Upgrade VMware tools