Using Multipass to Create and Manage Ubuntu Virtual Machines

Multipass is a lightweight, cross‑platform command‑line tool for creating and managing Ubuntu virtual machines. It runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS, offering a quick way to spin up disposable environments for development and testing.

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

After installation, verify the version: $ multipass version Finding available Ubuntu images : $ multipass find The command lists various Ubuntu releases (e.g., 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 20.10) along with their aliases.

Launching a new instance named dg: $ multipass launch --name dg The VM starts and you can confirm its details: $ multipass exec dg -- lsb_release -d Output shows the description, e.g., Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS.

Managing the VM :

List running instances:

Name    State    IPv4          Image
 dg      Running  192.168.24.5  Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Show detailed info:

$ multipass info --all
Name:    dg
State:   Running
IPv4:    192.168.24.5
Release: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS
Load:    0.00 0.00 0.00
Disk usage: 1.5G out of 4.7G
Memory usage: 112.1M out of 985.7M

Enter the VM shell: $ multipass shell dg Pause and resume:

$ multipass stop dg
$ multipass start dg

Delete and purge:

$ multipass delete dg
$ multipass purge dg

Automating setup with cloud‑init : Use the --cloud-init flag to apply a configuration file when launching a VM.

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

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

The runcmd section runs these commands on first boot, allowing you to provision tools automatically.

Conclusion : Multipass provides a fast, low‑overhead way to create Ubuntu VMs for experiments, small database clusters, or any scenario where a reproducible environment is needed. Its limitation is that it only supports Ubuntu images, as it is maintained by Canonical.

For more information, visit the official site https://multipass.run/ and the documentation https://multipass.run/docs/ .