How to create a VM with Multipass¶
Multipass is the recommended method for creating Ubuntu VMs on Ubuntu. It’s designed for developers who want a fresh Ubuntu environment with a single command, and it works on Linux, Windows and macOS.
On Linux it’s available as a snap:
sudo snap install multipass
If you’re running an older version of Ubuntu where snapd isn’t pre-installed, you will need to install it first:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install snapd
Find available images¶
To find available images you can use the multipass find command, which will produce a list like this:
Image Aliases Version Description
core core16 20200818 Ubuntu Core 16
core18 20211124 Ubuntu Core 18
core20 20230119 Ubuntu Core 20
core22 20230717 Ubuntu Core 22
22.04 jammy 20260515 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
24.04 noble 20260518 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
25.10 questing 20260520 Ubuntu 25.10
26.04 resolute,lts 20260520 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
charm-dev latest A development and testing environment for charmers
docker latest A Docker environment with Portainer and related tools
minikube latest minikube is local Kubernetes
Launch a fresh instance of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS¶
You can launch a fresh instance by specifying either the image name from the list (in this example, 26.04) or using an alias, if the image has one.
$ multipass launch 26.04
Launched: cleansing-guanaco
This command is equivalent to: multipass launch resolute or multipass launch lts in the list above. It will launch an instance based on the specified image, and provide it with a random name – in this case, cleansing-guanaco.
Check out the running instances¶
You can check out the currently running instance(s) by using the multipass list command:
$ multipass list
Name State IPv4 Image
cleansing-guanaco Running 10.140.26.17 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Learn more about the VM instance you just launched¶
You can use the multipass info command to find out more details about the VM instance parameters:
$ multipass info cleansing-guanaco
Name: cleansing-guanaco
State: Running
Snapshots: 0
IPv4: 10.140.26.17
Release: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Image hash: dc5b5a43c267 (Ubuntu 26.04 LTS)
CPU(s): 1
Load: 0.74 0.35 0.13
Disk usage: 2.2GiB out of 4.8GiB
Memory usage: 347.4MiB out of 950.8MiB
Mounts: --
Connect to a running instance¶
To enter the VM you created, use the shell command:
$ multipass shell cleansing-guanaco
Welcome to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 7.0.0-15-generic x86_64)
(...)
ubuntu@cleansing-guanaco:~$
Disconnect from the instance¶
Don’t forget to log out (or Ctrl + D) when you are done, or you may find yourself heading all the way down the Inception levels…
Run commands inside an instance from outside¶
$ multipass exec cleansing-guanaco -- lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Release: 26.04
Codename: resolute
Stop or start an instance¶
You can stop an instance to save resources using the stop command:
$ multipass stop cleansing-guanaco
You can start it back up again using the start command:
$ multipass start cleansing-guanaco
Delete the instance¶
Once you are finished with the instance, you can delete it as follows:
$ multipass delete cleansing-guanaco
It will now show up as deleted when you use the list command:
$ multipass list
Name State IPv4 Image
cleansing-guanaco Deleted -- Not Available
And when you want to completely get rid of it (and any other deleted instances), you can use the purge command:
$ multipass purge
Which we can check again using list:
$ multipass list
No instances found.
Integrate with the rest of your virtualisation¶
If you already have a hypervisor interacting with Libvirt, such as QEMU, KVM, or ESXi, you might be managing virtual machines through tools like virt-manager or the older uvtool.
In that case, integrating Multipass with your existing setup would allow VMs to share the same network bridge for communication
and be managed using virsh. However, Multipass runs as a headless system, so you don’t have direct GUI access through virt-viewer. Follow this guide to set up a GUI.
To begin, integrate Multipass into your existing setup by selecting libvirt as your local driver:
$ sudo multipass set local.driver=libvirt
Note
If you are having issues interacting with Multipass after switching to the libvirt driver, check if there is a restriction by AppArmor, for example. AppArmor may have a default policy which restricts the multipass service from interacting with the libvert service. So you need to add an explicit permission that allows it.
Start a guest, and access it via tools like virt-manager or virsh:
$ multipass launch lts
Launched: engaged-amberjack
$ virsh list
Id Name State
----------------------------------------------------
15 engaged-amberjack running
For more detailed and comprehensive instructions on changing your drivers, refer to the Multipass drivers documentation.
Get help¶
You can use the following commands on the CLI:
multipass help
multipass help <command>
multipass help --all
Or, check out the Multipass documentation for more details on how to use it.