Introduction to Ubuntu Multipass

Shinichi Okada

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Nov 12, 2020 · 4 min read

Multipass is one of the options you can use Ubuntu with on Mac, Windows, or Linux. It is easy to launch and control Ubuntu instances. In this article, we are going to learn basic operations including mounting a local directory to a Multipass instance, opening a shell prompt, and adding a path to the ~/.bashrc.

“Multipass is a mini-cloud on your workstation using native hypervisors of all the supported plaforms (Windows, macOS and Linux), it will give you an Ubuntu command line in just a click.” — https://multipass.run/docs

Installation

Download Multipass for your system and install it.

If you are using macOS:

brew install --cask multipass

Getting started

Start a new Ubuntu instance:

$ multipass launch --name shin-instance

List all multipass instances:

$ multipass list

Stop the running instance:

$ multipass stop shin-instance

Start the instance:

$ multipass start shin-instance

Show all the Multipass commands:

Get help:

$ multipass help
$ multipass 

Opening a shell prompt

Use multipass shell instance-name to open a shell prompt.

$ multipass shell shin-instance

Once you are in the instance, you can use terminal commands:

ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ bash --version
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ which bash
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ which -a bash

Update

You may get an error when you run sudo apt-get update. Then run the following after opening a shell prompt:

ubuntu@shin-instance:~ $echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf > /dev/null
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ sudo apt-get update
# installing zsh
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ sudo apt-get install zsh

macOS

I use the Multipass on my MacBook Pro and the DNS server that’s set up for Multipass wasn’t working.

After reading this article, I found that I need to add nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf.

$ sudo vim /etc/resolv.conf# add the followingnameserver 192.168.64.1
nameserver 1.1.1.1

Mounting the local directory

You can mount the local directory to your Multipass instance.

# Mount my local directory (on Mac) ~/bin to the instance
$ multipass mount $HOME/bin shin-instance

You can find the local directory under /Users/username in the Multipass instance:

Adding Path to bashrc

The Multipass terminal’s config file is ~/.bashrc.

Open the shell prompt on the instance and let’s export the PATH in the ~/.bashrc:

ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ vi ~/.bashrc

In the .bashrc add the following at the end:

export PATH="/Users/username/bin:$PATH"

You need to change the username accordingly.

Check if the PATH is added:

ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ echo $PATH

If it is not in the path, reload the ~/.bashrc.

# reloading .bashrc
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ source ~/.bashrc 
# or 
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ . ~/.bashrc
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ echo $PATH

If the above method doesn’t work, then exit the instance and open a shell prompt again.

# exit 
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ exit
# connect again
$ multipass shell shin-instance
ubuntu@shin-instance:~$ echo $PATH

Cleaning up

You can delete instances:

$ multipass delete shin-instance anther-instance

You can purge all deleted instances permanently:

$ multipass purge

Configuration

The multipass set command sets the configuration. For example, to set the autostart login to false:

$ multipass set client.gui.autostart=false

You can set a keyboard shortcut for the GUI to open a shell into the primary instance, the name of the primary instance, and more.

Find out more what you can do by using multipass help set.

Wrapping Up

That’s all folks. Since Multipass has limited commands it is easy to control Ubuntu instances. You can find more details in the Multipass Documentation and get help from the Multipass forum.

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