Multipass

Introduction

Multipass is an open-source command-line tool that allows developers to quickly and easily create and manage VMs. Multipass provides a lightweight, easy-to-use alternative to traditional virtualization solutions such as VirtualBox and VMWare.

This document introduces some basic Multipass commands and their usage. For more information, see Multipass documentation.

Multipass commands

multipass launch

multipass launch is used to create a new VM instance:

multipass launch --name vm1

This command creates a new VM instance with the name vm1.

If you need to create your VM from a specified image, run multipass find for a list of available images, and append the image name to the command above (e.g., multipass launch --name vm1 kinetic for using the Ubuntu 22.10 image).

multipass list

multipass list is used to list all the available VMs:

multipass list

This command displays a list of all available VMs along with their name, IP address, and status.

multipass shell

multipass shell is used to open a shell in the VM instance:

multipass shell vm1

This command opens a shell in the VM instance named vm1.

multipass restart

multipass restart is used to restart a VM instance:

multipass restart vm1

This command restarts a VM instance named vm1.

multipass stop

multipass stop is used to stop a running VM instance:

multipass stop vm1

This command stops the VM instance named vm1.

multipass mount

multipass mount is used to mount a path on the host to a path in the VM instance, allowing you to share data between the two directories (see this page):

multipass mount $HOME vm1

# result:
multipass info vm1
Mounts:         /home/vm1 => /home/vm1

# example (username is ubuntu by default):
multipass mount $HOME/path vm1:/home/username/path

# result:
# The path will be displayed in your VM's home directory

Mounts can also be specified as an option to the launch command:

multipass launch --mount /some/local/path:/some/instance/path

tip

To let the mount works perfectly, ensure that you have granted multipass enough disk permissions on the host, for example, grant Full Disk Access permission to multipassd in your macOS.

multipass unmount

multipass unmount is used to unmount the mounted paths:

multipass umount vm1

multipass delete

multipass delete is used to delete a VM instance:

multipass delete vm1

This command deletes the VM instance named vm1.

To permanently delete a VM instance, run:

multipass purge vm1

multipass info

multipass info is used to display information about the Multipass installation:

multipass info

This command displays information about the installed version of Multipass, the location of the image cache, and other details.

Using proxy in Multipass VMs

Assuming you use Clash and have your own VPN subscription, you should see a terminal command in clash similar to mine: export https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:7890 http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:7890 all_proxy=socks5://127.0.0.1:7890.

To modify the export command so that you VMs in Multipass can use your host proxy, follow these steps:

1. Open a terminal window on your Mac.

2. Determine the IP address of your Mac. You can use the ifconfig command to check this:

   ifconfig | grep "inet " | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | awk '{print $2}'

   This command will output the IP address of your Mac, which you will need to modify the proxy command for use in Multipass.

3. Modify the proxy command to use the IP address of your Mac instead of 127.0.0.1. For example, if your Mac's IP address is 192.168.0.2, the modified command would look like:

   export https_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:7890 \
   http_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:7890 \
   all_proxy=socks5://192.168.0.2:7890

4. Launch your Multipass VM using the command line or the Multipass app.

5. Open a terminal window in your VM.

6. Test the connectivity to your host machine by pinging the IP address of your Mac. For example, if your Mac's IP address is 192.168.0.2, you can run the following command:

   ping 192.168.0.2

   If the ping is successful, you should see responses from the Mac.

7. Set the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables in your VM to point to the IP address of your Mac and the port number of your proxy server. For example, if your Mac's IP address is 192.168.0.2 and your proxy server is listening on port 7890, you can set the environment variables using the following commands:

   export http_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:7890
   export https_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:7890

8. If you want to use SOCKS5 proxy, set the all_proxy environment variable in your VM to point to the IP address of your Mac and the port number of your SOCKS5 proxy server. For example:

   export all_proxy=socks5://192.168.0.2:7890

9. Test the connectivity to the internet by running a command like curl to access a website. For example, you can run the following command to access the Google website:

   curl https://google.com

   If the command is successful, you should see the HTML code of the Google website.

That's it! You should now be able to use the modified export command in your Multipass VM to use your host machine as a proxy.

note

To unset the environment variables http_proxy, https_proxy, or all_proxy, use unset:

unset http_proxy https_proxy all_proxy

Available commands

The table below lists all available commands that multipass supports:

Command	Description
alias	Create an alias
aliases	List available aliases
authenticate	Authenticate client
delete	Delete instances
exec	Run a command on an instance
find	Display available images to create instances from
get	Get a configuration setting
help	Display help about a command
info	Display information about instances
launch	Create and start an Ubuntu instance
list	List all available instances
mount	Mount a local directory in the instance
networks	List available network interfaces
purge	Purge all deleted instances permanently
recover	Recover deleted instances
restart	Restart instances
set	Set a configuration setting
shell	Open a shell on a running instance
start	Start instances
stop	Stop running instances
suspend	Suspend running instances
transfer	Transfer files between the host and instances
umount	Unmount a directory from an instance
unalias	Remove aliases
version	Show version details