Make a VM and move to PC?

K

kclark

This question could really fall into installation, filesystems, or general. Mods please move as you see fit.

I'm working on a personal server for my house using FreeBSD and ZFS. I've created a VM with FreeBSD (only one disk right now) and got most of my basic stuff working and tested there. I was wondering if someone could tell me if it's possible to take a snapshot/image of my VM and install it on my actual machine. If it is could you point me to the documentation? Also, for completeness sake, what are the pros and cons of this? Would I be better off retracing my steps on the actual machine from a fresh install?

Thanks!
Kris

Edit:
I forgot to add: I'm sure I could dd the virtualdisk, but was unsure if this was the best approach
 
There are numerous ways to do it. The worst is dd(), although people always seem to reach for that.

What filesystem is used on the VM? If it's ZFS, you can use snapshots to copy it to another system.

Backup Options For FreeBSD shows how to use dump() and restore() for UFS filesystems.

Some people use a reinstall as an opportunity to only install what is needed.
 
Thanks @wblock@! I'm using ZFS, I figured what you mentioned would be the best bet. Any gotcha's that I should look out for that might not be listed in your link?
 
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