Getting Started with Multipass: Installing, Creating, and Managing Ubuntu Virtual Machines

Multipass is a lightweight command‑line tool for managing virtual machines that runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS, allowing users to quickly configure VMs to meet performance needs.

Download the installer from the official website and install it on your operating system (the example uses Windows).

After installation, verify the installed version:

multipass version

List the available Ubuntu images with:

multipass find

The command outputs a table of image aliases, versions, and descriptions, such as core18 , core20 , 18.04 , 20.04 , etc.

Create a new Ubuntu container named dg :

multipass launch --name dg

Check the Ubuntu release inside the instance:

multipass exec dg -- lsb_release -d

View the list of running VMs:

multipass list

Detailed information for all instances can be obtained with:

multipass info --all

Enter the VM’s shell:

multipass shell dg

Pause and restart the VM using:

# pause multipass stop dg # start multipass start dg

Delete the VM (which leaves it in a stopped state) and then purge it completely:

# delete multipass delete dg # purge multipass purge dg

For reproducible environments, use the --cloud-init flag to apply an initialization script when launching a VM. Example config.yaml :

#cloud-config runcmd: - curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash - - sudo apt-get install -y nodejs - wget https://releases.leanapp.cn/leancloud/lean-cli/releases/download/v0.21.0/lean-cli-x64.deb - sudo dpkg -i lean-cli-x64.deb

Launch with cloud‑init:

multipass launch --name ubuntu --cloud-init config.yaml

Multipass is praised for quickly setting up Linux test environments and small database clusters, but it only supports Ubuntu images because it is developed by Canonical.