What is Multipass?
Multipass is a lightweight VM manager for Linux, Windows and macOS. It's designed
for developers who want a fresh Ubuntu environment with a single command. It uses
KVM on Linux, Hyper-V on Windows and HyperKit on macOS to run the VM with minimal
overhead. It can also use VirtualBox on Windows and macOS.
Multipass will fetch images for you and keep them up to date.
Since it supports metadata for cloud-init, you can simulate a small cloud
deployment on your laptop or workstation.
Install Multipass
On Linux it's available as a snap:
sudo snap install multipass --classic
For macOS, you can download the installers from GitHub or use Homebrew:
# Note, this may require you to enter your password for some sudo operations during install
brew cask install multipass
On Windows, download the installer from GitHub.
Usage
Find available images
$ multipass find
Image Aliases Version Description
core core16 20190424 Ubuntu Core 16
core18 20190213 Ubuntu Core 18
16.04 xenial 20190628 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
18.04 bionic,lts 20190627.1 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
18.10 cosmic 20190628 Ubuntu 18.10
19.04 disco 20190628 Ubuntu 19.04
daily:19.10 devel,eoan 20190623 Ubuntu 19.10
Launch a fresh instance of the current Ubuntu LTS
$ multipass launch ubuntu
Launching dancing-chipmunk...
Downloading Ubuntu 18.04 LTS..........
Launched: dancing chipmunk
Check out the running instances
$ multipass list
Name State IPv4 Release
dancing-chipmunk RUNNING 10.125.174.247 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
live-naiad RUNNING 10.125.174.243 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
snapcraft-asciinema STOPPED -- Ubuntu Snapcraft builder for Core 18
Learn more about the VM instance you just launched
$ multipass info dancing-chipmunk
Name: dancing-chipmunk
State: RUNNING
IPv4: 10.125.174.247
Release: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Image hash: 19e9853d8267 (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)
Load: 0.97 0.30 0.10
Disk usage: 1.1G out of 4.7G
Memory usage: 85.1M out of 985.4M
Connect to a running instance
$ multipass shell dancing-chipmunk
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-42-generic x86_64)
...
Don't forget to logout (or Ctrl-D) or you may find yourself heading all the
way down the Inception levels... ;)
Run commands inside an instance from outside
$ multipass exec dancing-chipmunk -- lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic
Stop an instance to save resources
$ multipass stop dancing-chipmunk
Delete the instance
$ multipass delete dancing-chipmunk
It will now show up as deleted:
Name State IPv4 Release
snapcraft-asciinema STOPPED -- Ubuntu Snapcraft builder for Core 18
dancing-chipmunk DELETED -- Not Available
And when you want to completely get rid of it:
$ multipass purge
Get help
multipass help
multipass help <command>
Get involved!
Here's a set of steps to build and run your own build of Multipass:
Build Dependencies
cd <multipass>
apt install devscripts equivs
mk-build-deps -s sudo -i
Building
cd <multipass>
git submodule update --init --recursive
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
make
Running Multipass daemon and client
First, install multipass's runtime dependencies. On amd64 architecture, you can achieve that with:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libgl1 libpng16-16 libqt5core5a libqt5gui5 \
libqt5network5 libqt5widgets5 libxml2 libvirt0 dnsmasq-base \
dnsmasq-utils qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils libslang2 iproute2 \
iptables iputils-ping libatm1 libxtables12 xterm
Then run multipass's daemon:
sudo <multipass>/build/bin/multipassd &
Copy the desktop file multipass clients expect to find in your home:
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/multipass/
cp <multipass>/data/multipass.gui.autostart.desktop ~/.local/share/multipass/
Optionally, enable auto-complete in bash:
source <multipass>/completions/bash/multipass
Finally, use multipass's clients:
<multipass>/build/bin/multipass launch --name foo # CLI client
<multipass>/build/bin/multipass.gui # GUI client