My suggestion would be to use PBS (Proxmox Backup Server). Backup the VM you want to PBS, and then they can restore from it. I don't believe it's possible with VM snapshots. Answer from fokkerlit on reddit.com
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
cloning a VM with all snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
August 1, 2024 - If you really want to clone a VM ... 1. Go to the directory on your NAS share, where the VM's qcow2 file is located (usually called `images`) and copy the whole directory and rename the files accordingly to the new VM's id (you may need ...
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
cloning vm with snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
February 16, 2020 - @Fabian_E you are right: need to copy original main disk from disabled vm and all the snapshots, to make this "feature" works. of cource with replacing storage/mac/vmgenid in clonded config (original config copy-pasta).
Copy of VM including snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
In Proxmox web if at Snapshots appears the same hierarchy for the new machine as the old one. ... This method worked fine for cloning a machine with eth0 interface but when I try to clone a VM that has virtio interface after doing all the copies when I start the VM from Proxmox console there ... More on forum.proxmox.com
Is it possible to export VMs with Snapshots for use on other Proxmox instances?
My suggestion would be to use PBS (Proxmox Backup Server). Backup the VM you want to PBS, and then they can restore from it. I don't believe it's possible with VM snapshots. More on reddit.com
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June 12, 2025Clone of VM vs Clone of VM using Snapshot | Proxmox Support Forum
Can anyone explain me the difference between Clone of VM Directly vs Clone of VM using Snapshot More on forum.proxmox.com
Moving VMs with snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
After switching you can keep the ... policy allows it. ... Best regards, Manuel Do you already have a Commercial Support Subscription? - If not, Buy now and read the documentation ... So in conclusion, there is no way to move a VM's disk to a different storage together with the snapshots, right? - copy disk to new ... More on forum.proxmox.com
Videos
06:45
How to clone a Proxmox Virtual Machine - YouTube
20:06
Proxmox VE 6.1 Snapshots / Backup / Clone (2020) - 😲 Besser ...
02:59
Proxmox Cloning: Clone Virtual Machines Using Full and Linked Clones ...
Master Proxmox Backups: How to Take Snapshots and Secure Your Data ...
10:42
Maximize Your Proxmox: Templates & Snapshots Explained #18 - YouTube
08:41
Cloning VMs and Containers in ProxMox - YouTube
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Create a VM copy from a VM snapshot | Proxmox Support Forum
May 19, 2023 - How to do that? Thanks a lot. ... Right click on the source VM and hit clone. Then you pick the snapshot you want: ... a second problem is that i do not have enough free space on that host. That's the reason for the question about "zfs send".
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Copy of VM including snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
August 3, 2015 - Never tried, but, looking at my VMs storage folder, you should probably: stop the VM to be cloned, clone it as usual on a storage that allows snapshots (like NFS fore above qcow2 example) and then by CLI copy snapshots raw images in the destination folder, renaming them appropriately note: the destination VM should have in its .conf a line like vmstate: <storage name>:122/vm-122-state-img_002.raw stating what snapshot file is in use now and a line like snaptime: 1438262544 stating when the snapshot in use was taken, I guess.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/proxmox › is it possible to export vms with snapshots for use on other proxmox instances?
r/Proxmox on Reddit: Is it possible to export VMs with Snapshots for use on other Proxmox instances?
June 12, 2025 -
I create VMs for various test environments, and would like to share these VMs with my coworkers, however I don't have a good way of sending these VMs to them. Seeing as a VM can be multiple disk images (in my case qcows) + hardware configuration, it seems much less trivial than distribution of an ova/ovf in ESXi.
Specifically, I think the issue is distributing snapshots, which I'm not sure is possible.
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My suggestion would be to use PBS (Proxmox Backup Server). Backup the VM you want to PBS, and then they can restore from it. I don't believe it's possible with VM snapshots.
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Yes, you can send snapshots of the volumes via zfs-send/zfs-receive (check out the 'sanoid' program, or more specifically the 'syncoid' helper script to make this trivial) and then just copy and slightly edit the config file in /etc/pve/qemu-server/ to their instance (adjust as needed).
Programster
blog.programster.org › creating-full-zfs-clones-in-proxmox
Creating Full ZFS Clones in Proxmox | Programster's Blog
January 4, 2025 - The -F forces zfs to overwrite the destination, which already exists (from us cloning the VM). The previous command copied the disk with all of its snapshots, however, when we took the snapshots, we told proxmox to store that state as well.
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Clone of VM vs Clone of VM using Snapshot | Proxmox Support Forum
May 27, 2021 - When I want to make a clone of VM when there is no snapshot configured, I will only see an option to define target storage but when snapshot of VM is already existing, there is one more option in the wizard "saying choose snapshot" which you would like to use to make a clone that is what i was referring
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Moving VMs with snapshots | Proxmox Support Forum
March 1, 2026 - ... Best regards, Manuel Do you already have a Commercial Support Subscription? - If not, Buy now and read the documentation ... So in conclusion, there is no way to move a VM's disk to a different storage together with the snapshots, right?
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
How to move VM (including snapshots) to a new storage? | Proxmox Support Forum
September 26, 2020 - - step1 = shutdown VM via the GUI ... via the GUI - step3 = send this snapshot recursively (with the -R flag) which will send the complete tree (snapshot + all previous snapshots + initial volume)...
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
New virtual machine from snapshot | Proxmox Support Forum
July 28, 2020 - In order not to stop the operation of the entire virtual machine, But to create a new virtual machine from yesterday's snapshot. Get the file you want and delete it. ... it depends on the storage whether this works or not. you can try yourself ...
BDRShield
bdrshield.com › home › blog › proxmox virtualization series: how to clone vms in proxmox? a step-by-step guide – part 14
Proxmox Virtualization Series: How to Clone VMs in Proxmox? A Step-by-Step Guide – Part 14
March 10, 2026 - 2. What is the difference between a full clone and a linked clone in Proxmox? A full clone creates a complete, independent copy of the VM, including all disk data. A linked clone shares the base disk image with the original VM, saving storage space but depending on the parent template/VM snapshot.
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Move VM and Snapshots to a new LVM volume | Proxmox Support Forum
January 17, 2024 - You'd need to, while the VM is down, copy the snap_vm-XYZ-disk-N_NAME and vm-XYZ-state-NAME volumes and the actual volumes (state volumes are only present for snapshots with RAM) to the new storage and adapt the VM configuration file accordingly ...
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Exporting snapshots and backups | Proxmox Support Forum
March 19, 2022 - You could for example backup the VMs/LXCs using Vzdump to the Zvdump Storage on server A. Then copy over the backup files, using the program of your choice, to the Vzdump storage on server B and restore the VMs/LXCs there. If you are using ZFS as your storage you can use ZFS replication (see here for example) to copy datasets/zvols between pools or even hosts and this will also include snapshots. ... I'm using the backup tool from within a VM, which creates a .gz file in /var/lib/vz/dump.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/proxmox › how to efficiently manage linked clones and snapshots on proxmox lvm thin storage and migrate to shared storage?
r/Proxmox on Reddit: How to efficiently manage linked clones and snapshots on Proxmox LVM Thin storage and migrate to shared storage?
April 8, 2023 -
Hi everyone,
I've been trying to set up my Proxmox environment with LVM Thin storage and raw images for my virtual machines (VMs) as per a tutorial. However, I'm unsure how to determine the actual space usage on this volume since I can't view the actual files. I have several VMs with varying disk sizes, and I'm wondering how efficient my linked clones and templates are, given that the total storage usage is well over 2TB on a 2TB NVME SSD volume.
In addition, I'm looking to migrate my VMs to a shared storage, and I'm considering using NFS as it seems to be widely used and supports thin provisioning. I'm wondering if it's possible to migrate my local VMs to an NFS share while preserving snapshots and linked clones.
I'm planning to install OpenMediaVault (OMV) as a guest VM on the LVM Thin raw storage and present it as an NFS share. I'm unsure whether to use ZFS or ext4 for OMV's storage volume. I could also use iSCSI, but I believe that would make sharing with a cluster or dropping files on it from other devices more complex.
The reason for using a guest VM to store the other VMs is that I plan to move the OMV VM to my NAS's storage, which is a RAID volume. Storing the VMs directly on the NAS could result in the need for frequent reconfigurations of my cluster's storage in the event of changes in NAS hardware. Also, not sharing it via the NAS will allow me to figure out a clustering approach independent of the NAS I buy. I hope to get OMV guest to be a cluster or at least live migrate or something so that it can achieve over 99.99% uptime for my VM storage.
Regarding backups, I'm not sure how Proxmox's built-in systems work yet, but I assume I'll get snapshots in time of a VM copied to a different storage location. Then, I'll have to duplicate that to an offsite copy.
My main concern now is how to manage linked VMs and snapshots for shared storage so that I can eventually have a Proxmox cluster later this year. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Possible to create quick copy of KVM VM by using snapshot? | Proxmox Support Forum
April 13, 2015 - This work with any storage. (so you don't need to backup/restore). linked clone of vm is not implemented. ... Are you looking for a French Proxmox training center? https://www.groupe-cyllene.com/formation-proxmox/ ... Here is how to make a copy-on-write clone of a container when storage is rbd on ceph. In this example we take a snapshot of 184 which is in ceph pool "mypool" and copy-on-write clone will be 199.
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Moving snapshot | Proxmox Support Forum
August 26, 2014 - Click to expand... copy - vm config file : /etc/pve/qemu-server/vmid.cfg - vm disk : /var/lib/vz/images/<vmid>/* to your new server. if you change the vmid, edit your vm.cfg file, and rename the vm disk files ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/proxmox › linked clone with snapshots and ram state
r/Proxmox on Reddit: Linked clone with snapshots and RAM state
January 16, 2024 - Welcome to r/Proxmox , the main subreddit regarding the Proxmox hypervisor! ... I'd like to create a linked clone (either from a template or another VM), but with the caveat that it contains RAM state from a given snapshot. This way, the new VM can skip the boot sequence and have prerequisites started and ready to go and because it's a linked clone, it doesn't need to copy ...
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
moving VM between hosts maintaining snapshots? | Proxmox Support Forum
February 3, 2025 - With this you can transfer all data in a ZFS dataset (or ZVol in this case) including all ZFS-snapshots. Then manually copy /etc/pve/local/qemu-server/<yourvmid>.conf and edit it manually to reflect the new names of storage etc. This file includes a separate stanza for each snapshot.
Dannyda
dannyda.com › home › how to move/migrate virtual hard disks for virtual machine/vm with its snapshots and delete source/original virtual disks on proxmox ve (pve)
How to Move/Migrate virtual hard disks for virtual machine/VM with its snapshots and delete source/original virtual disks on Proxmox VE (PVE) < Blog-D without Nonsense
December 3, 2020 - The feature of moving the virtual disk with snapshots is not implemented yet on Proxmox VE 6.3-2, but we can do it manually and easily if we met the following criteria · We we are using .qcow2 files for our virtual disks · FYI: qcow2 stands for “QEMU Copy On Write”, the snapshots are stored in the same disk image file as the virtual disk itself, in other words, the virtual disk and its snapshots are stored in the same single virtual disk file, so there is no separate file for snapshots we need to deal with, but this is only try with qcow2 virtual disks.
Proxmox
forum.proxmox.com › home › forums › proxmox virtual environment › proxmox ve: installation and configuration
Cloning a VM from snapshot - not working | Proxmox Support Forum
April 20, 2017 - Unfortunately I am not sure if this was working in 4.x or something that came with the 5.0 code. ... Best regards, Dominik Do you already have a Commercial Support Subscription? - If not, Buy now and read the documentation ... cloning from snapshot is not available on all storage need to have snap=>1 in plugin (maybe do you use zfs ?) grep -r copy /usr/share/perl5/PVE/Storage/ /usr/share/perl5/PVE/Storage/RBDPlugin.pm: copy => { base => 1, current => 1, snap => 1}, /usr/share/perl5/PVE/Storage/ZFSPlugin.pm: copy => { base => 1, current => 1}, /usr/share/perl5/PVE/Storage/DRBDPlugin.pm: copy =>