Allow cloning of an instance while it's paused

[Muts]

I'm setting up a replacement server using virtualbox instead of simply installing everything on the host (for obvious reasons).

I would also like to make weekly (or even daily) backups of the complete instance, so recovery is very fast when the physical machine dies. I store such backups on separate machines.

I've been searching for various backup strategies on the forum (and by using google), and I've learned that doing complete instance backups while the instance is running is currently unsupported.

What I would like to be able to do (for now) is doing a clone of a live instance that I paused. This should be a lot easier to program than doing a clone of an actual running instance.

I guess you've heard such feature requests a lot before, and might already started on adding similar functionality.

(The way I intend to create semi-live backups is to pause the instance, do a regular file copy of all instance files and resume the instance. Not perfect, but works for my needs.)

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.