Backup and restore with VirtualBox

Question

A VirtualBox's newbie here. I created a snapshot of a VM by using this command line:

VBoxManage snapshot VMName take BackupName

Then I used this to check:

VBoxManage showvminfo VMName

and I saw a snapshot was created with the name BackupName. I didn't find an "actual" snapshot BackupName, I found a file filename.sav in SnapShots folder.

My intention was to create a snapshot of this VM, copy it to another host machine and restore it there. Since I couldn't find the "snapshot" BackupName, so I copied sav file to new host and used this command:

VBoxManage adoptsate filename.sav

But it didn't work. Can anyone help me how to copy that "snapshot" and restore it in a new host. Thanks a lot

You need to go to VirtualBox Manager's File menu and use Export Appliance. A snapshot is only a differences file realtive to another file on the same machine, not a complete image of a VM that may be transported around. — Mark Setchell
Thanks @MarkSetchell for your explanation. Unfortunately, the host carries the VM which I want to backup does not have VirtualBox UI, that's why I have to use plain command line there. Any other solution? — Ragnarsson

Mark Setchell Mark Setchell · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-08T13:21:28

First, get a list of the Virtual Machines installed on your host at the command line:

vboxmanage list vms

Sample Output

"UbuntuVM" {77743eca-e338-471c-b824-60c5c5c22b6f}
"Windows XP SP3" {3818afc4-189d-4441-8f35-07284c930a4b}
"Windows XP SP3 Clone" {79b40316-225a-43a1-9ddf-22a51c280d4e}

Find the one you want to export to a different host, and export to a file called Ubuntu.ova like this:

vboxmanage export UbuntuVM -o Ubuntu.ova

Backup and restore with VirtualBox

1 Answers