Installing Multipass on macOS

Prerequisites

Hypervisor.framework / hyperkit

The default backend on macOS is hyperkit, wrapping Apple’s Hypervisor.framework. You need macOS Yosemite, version 10.10.3 or later installed on a 2010 or newer Mac.

VirtualBox

Multipass also supports using VirtualBox as a virtualization provider. You can download the latest version and check the requirements on the VirtualBox website.

Installation

To install Multipass on macOS, you have two options: the installer package or brew:

Installer

Download the latest installer from our GitHub releases page - it’s the .pkg package.

If you want Tab completion on the command line, install bash-completion from brew first.

Activate the downloaded installer and it will guide you through the steps necessary. You will need an account with Administrator privileges to complete the installation.

There’s a script to uninstall:

$ sudo sh "/Library/Application Support/com.canonical.multipass/uninstall.sh"

Brew

Have a look at brew.sh on instructions to install Brew itself. Then, it’s a simple:

$ brew cask install multipass

To uninstall:

$ brew cask uninstall multipass
# or
$ brew cask zap multipass # to destroy all data, too

First run

Once installed, open the Terminal app and you can use multipass launch to create your first instance.

If you’d like to use VirtualBox, run:

$ sudo multipass set local.driver=virtualbox

With multipass version you can check which version you have running:

$ multipass version
multipass 1.0.0+mac
multipassd 1.0.0+mac

Have a look at Working with instances to quickly get off the ground!