How to install Multipass on Linux

Contents:

• Check prerequisites
• Install, upgrade, uninstall
• Run

Check prerequisites

Multipass for Linux is published as a snap package, available on the Snap Store. Before you can use it, you need to install snapd. Snapd is included in Ubuntu by default.

Install, upgrade, uninstall

To install Multipass, simply execute:

$ snap install multipass

For architectures other than amd64, you’ll need the beta channel at the moment.

You can also use the edge channel to get the latest development build:

$ snap install multipass --edge

Make sure you’re part of the group that Multipass gives write access to its socket (sudo in this case, but it may also be adm or admin, depending on your distribution):

$ ls -l /var/snap/multipass/common/multipass_socket
srw-rw---- 1 root sudo 0 Dec 19 09:47 /var/snap/multipass/common/multipass_socket
$ groups | grep sudo
adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin

You can check some details about the snap with the snap info command:

$ snap info multipass
name:      multipass
summary:   Instant Ubuntu VMs
publisher: Canonical✓
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/multipass
contact:   https://github.com/CanonicalLtd/multipass/issues/new
license:   GPL-3.0
description: |
  Multipass is a tool to launch and manage VMs on Windows, Mac and Linux that simulates a cloud
  environment with support for cloud-init. Get Ubuntu on-demand with clean integration to your IDE
  and version control on your native platform.
  ...
commands:
  - multipass.gui
  - multipass
services:
  multipass.multipassd: simple, enabled, active
snap-id:      mA11087v6dR3IEcQLgICQVjuvhUUBUKM
tracking:     latest/candidate
refresh-date: 5 days ago, at 10:13 CEST
channels:
  latest/stable:    1.3.0                 2020-06-17 (2205) 228MB -
  latest/candidate: 1.3.0                 2020-06-17 (2205) 228MB -
  latest/beta:      1.3.0-dev.17+gf89e1db 2020-04-28 (2019) 214MB -
  latest/edge:      1.4.0-dev.83+g149f10a 2020-06-17 (2216) 228MB -
installed:          1.3.0                            (2205) 228MB -

As the installation happened via snap, you don’t need to worry about upgrading—it will be done automatically.

To uninstall Multipass, simply run:

snap remove multipass

Run

You’ve installed Multipass. Time to run your first commands! Use multipass version to check your version or multipass launch to create your first instance.

Last updated 5 months ago.