How to modify an instance
See also: Instance
This document shows further ways to customize an instance outside of the launch command, via settings.
Contents:
Set the CPU, RAM or disk of an instance
See also:
local.<instance-name>.(cpus|disk|memory)
[since version 1.10]
While instance properties can be determined at launch, some of them can be updated after the instance has been created. Specifically, an instance’s memory, disk space, and the number of its CPUs are exposed via daemon settings: local.<instance-name>.(cpus|disk|memory).
To modify one of this properties, first stop the instance and then issue the set command. For example:
$ multipass stop handsome-ling
$ multipass set local.handsome-ling.cpus=4
$ multipass set local.handsome-ling.disk=60G
$ multipass set local.handsome-ling.memory=7G
These properties can be consulted with the get command. Instances do not have to be stopped for that. For example:
$ multipass get local.handsome-ling.cpus
4
$ multipass get local.handsome-ling.disk
60.0GiB
$ multipass get local.handsome-ling.memory
7.0GiB
Only properties of stopped, non-deleted instances can be updated, but all instances can have their properties fetched. Their keys can be obtained with multipass get --keys. Yet, trying to update an instance that is running, suspended, or deleted, results in an error.
Modifying instance settings is not supported when using the hyperkit driver, which has been deprecated in favor of the qemu. The qemu and virtualbox drivers on Intel macOS do support instance modification.
Set the status of an instance to primary
See also: client.primary-name
This section demonstrates how to set the status of an instance to primary. This is convenient because it makes this instance the default argument for several commands, such as shell , start , stop , restart , and suspend and also automatically mounts our $HOME directory in the instance.
To grant a regular instance the primary status, assign its name to the client.primary-name:
$ multipass set client.primary-name=<instance name>
This setting allows transferring primary status among instances. The primary name can be configured independently of whether instances with the old and new names exist. If they do, they lose and gain primary status accordingly.
This provides a means of (de)selecting an existing instance as primary. An example is show below:
# Assign the primary status to an instance called 'first':
$ multipass set client.primary-name=first
# Now this instance is picked up automatically by 'multipass start'
# The primary instance also automatically mounts the user's home directory into a directory called 'Home'
$ multipass start
Launched: first
Mounted '/home/ubuntu' into 'first:Home'
# Stop the primary instance
$ multipass stop
$ multipass launch --name second
Launched: second
# Change the primary instance to an existing instance
$ multipass set client.primary-name=second
# Now this instance is used by default by the commands
$ multipass suspend
# When listing all instances, the primary one is displayed first
$ multipass list
Name State IPv4 Image
second Suspended -- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
first Stopped -- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Last updated a month ago.