How to use Multipass remotely

This guide explains how to use Multipass remotely. This can be useful, for example, if you want to run your VMs on a more powerful machine.

Expose Multipass to your network

To expose Multipass to your network, use the --address option when starting the daemon. The syntax to use is:

multipassd --address <server_name:port>

The client accepts the MULTIPASS_SERVER_ADDRESS environment variable that overrides the default:

MULTIPASS_SERVER_ADDRESS=<hostname>:51001 multipass find

Sample output:

Image                       Aliases           Version          Description
...
21.10                       impish            20220118         Ubuntu 21.10

Caveats:

  • Because mounts are executed as privileged users, it is recommended to use client authentication to explicitly grant access to clients via a shared passphrase. See How to authenticate clients with the Multipass service.
    Alternatively, you can use the command multipass set local.privileged-mounts=false to disable the mounts feature altogether.
  • The multipass mount command takes a target filepath which is resolved daemon-side, meaning that directories are mounted from the system that the daemon is running on, not the client.
  • Some commands (shell, exec, mount) currently rely on direct networking between the client and the instance. For these to work, you’ll need to ensure routing between them is possible.

Change the daemon settings

You can run the command systemctl edit snap.multipass.multipassd.service and place content along these lines (replace <hostname> with the hostname or the IP you want it to listen on) in:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/snap run multipass.multipassd --address <hostname>:51005

Restart the service:

snap stop multipass
snap start multipass

On macOS you’ll need to add it to the service definition (again, replace <hostname>) and reload it:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy \
  -c "Add :ProgramArguments: string --address" \
  -c "Add :ProgramArguments: string <hostname>:51001" \
  /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist

Reinstalling or upgrading Multipass will overwrite these changes.

On Windows you’d need to edit/recreate the service definition, and that’s non-trivial (if you do, remember to pass /svc as the first argument to the multipassd.exe binary, and that we currently use the LocalService account)…

As a one-time thing you can use the Start parameters field in the Services panel after stopping the service:

image

Errors or typos? Topics missing? Hard to read? Let us know or open an issue on GitHub.

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