Virtual environments are invaluable tools for developers be they data scientists, software/cloud/DevOps engineers and system administrators. They provide you with quick disposable environments for experimentation, testing and endless fresh starts.
Multipass released by Canonical has presented itself as a fresh and easy to use tool inside of this domain. Which I now use on a daily basis over similar tools for VMs! So what exactly makes it so great? (Beyond VMs for M1 MacBooks!)
Simple to install
It is a one-liner to install in most cases:
- Linux:
sudo snap install multipass - Mac:
brew install multipass - Windows: there is a link Download Multipass for Windows
Simple to use
You can manage the entire VM lifecycle with 3 commands:
- Spin up an ubuntu 20.04 VM
multipass launch 20.04 - Enter the VM terminal prompt
multipass shell <vm name> - Delete the VM
multipass delete <vm name>
Simple VM customisation
- launch VM with 2 cpus
multipass launch 20.04 --cpus 2 - launch VM with 1GB memory
multipass launch 20.04 --mem 1G - launch VM with 5GB disk
multipass launch 20.04 --disk 5G
Simple file transfers
- mount a host directory to VM
multipass mount /host/path <vm name>:/some/path - transfer a file from host to VM
multipass transfer script.sh <vm name>:/tmp/script.sh - transfer a file from VM to host
multipass transfer <vm name>:/root/script.sh /path/on/host
Simple clean up (and recovery)
- Delete a VM
multipass delete <vm name> - Permanently delete all VMs
multipass purge - Recover a deleted VM
multipass recover <vm name>
Multipass in Action
Here is a demo of multipass in action to show how simple it is.
#Find available VM images
$ multipass find
Image Aliases Version Description
18.04 bionic 20220104 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
20.04 focal,lts 20220111 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
21.04 hirsute 20220113 Ubuntu 21.04
21.10 impish 20220111 Ubuntu 21.10
#Spin up an ubuntu 20.04 instance
$ multipass launch 20.04
Launched: glowing-ibex
#Run uname command to check kernel version in VM
$ multipass exec glowing-ibex -- uname -rp
5.4.0-94-generic aarch64
#Delete VM
$ multipass delete glowing-ibex
#Permanently delete VM
$ multipass delete glowing-ibex
$ multipass ls
Name State IPv4 Image
glowing-ibex Deleted -- Not Available
$ multipass purge
$ multipass ls
No instances found.
To Conclude
Multipass is a super simple but powerful tool to spin up VMs and destroy them in very few CLI lines. Its beauty is in its simplicity, as you can imagine it saves you time by letting you spin up VMs for quick experiments locally rather than on cloud instances, it could provide a disposable environment to run a local data pipeline or even form a part of CI/CD pipeline. You could use it to test your DevOps configuration scripts or experiment with cluster technology setups. Of course, your creativity is your limit, just know it's easy from start to finish with Multipass.
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Pritesh Tailor
Devops Engineer, previsico
@priteshtailor
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