How to set up the driver

See also: Driver, local.driver

This document demonstrates how to choose, set up, and manage the drivers behind Multipass. Multipass already has sensible defaults, so this is an optional step.

Default driver

By default, Multipass on Linux uses the qemu or lxd driver (depending on the architecture).

Install an alternative driver

If you want more control over your VMs after they are launched, you can also use the experimental libvirt driver.

To install libvirt, run the following command (or use the equivalent for your Linux distribution):

sudo apt install libvirt-daemon-system

Now you can switch the Multipass driver to libvirt. First, enable Multipass to use your local libvirt by connecting to the libvirt interface/plug:

sudo snap connect multipass:libvirt

Then, stop all instances and tell Multipass to use libvirt, running the following commands:

multipass stop --all
multipass set local.driver=libvirt

All your existing instances will be migrated and can be used straight away.

You can still use the multipass client and the tray icon, and any changes you make to the configuration of the instance in libvirt will be persistent. They may not be represented in Multipass commands such as multipass info, though.

An alternative option is to use VirtualBox.

To switch the Multipass driver to VirtualBox, run this command:

sudo multipass set local.driver=virtualbox

From now on, all instances started with multipass launch will use VirtualBox behind the scenes.

If you want to (or have to), you can change the hypervisor that Multipass uses to VirtualBox.

To that end, install VirtualBox, if you haven’t yet. You may find that you need to run the VirtualBox installer as administrator.

To switch the Multipass driver to VirtualBox (also with Administrator privileges), run this command:

multipass set local.driver=virtualbox

From then on, all instances started with multipass launch will use VirtualBox behind the scenes.

Use the driver to view Multipass instances

You can view instances with libvirt in two ways, using the virsh CLI or the virt-manager GUI.

To use the virsh CLI, launch an instance and then run the command virsh list (see man virsh for a command reference):

virsh list

The output will be similar to the following:

 Id   Name                   State
--------------------------------------
 1    unaffected-gyrfalcon   running

Alternatively, to use the virt-manager GUI, …

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Multipass runs as the root user, so to see the instances in VirtualBox, or through the VBoxManage command, you have to run those as root, too. To see the instances in VirtualBox, use the command:

sudo VirtualBox

Multipass instances in VirtualBox

And, to list the instances on the command line, run:

sudo VBoxManage list vms

Sample output:

"primary" {395d5300-557d-4640-a43a-48100b10e098}

You can still use the multipass client and the system menu icon, and any changes you make to the configuration of the instances in VirtualBox will be persistent. They may not be represented in Multipass commands such as multipass info , though.

Multipass runs as the System account, so to see the instances in VirtualBox, or through the VBoxManage command, you have to run those as that user via PsExec -s. Download and unpack PSTools.zip in your Downloads folder, and in an administrative PowerShell, run:

& $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PSTools\PsExec.exe -s -i $env:VBOX_MSI_INSTALL_PATH\VirtualBox.exe

Multipass instances in VirtualBox

To list the instances on the command line:

& $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PSTools\PsExec.exe -s $env:VBOX_MSI_INSTALL_PATH\VBoxManage.exe list vms

Sample output:

"primary" {05a04fa0-8caf-4c35-9d21-ceddfe031e6f}

Use VirtualBox to set up port forwarding for a Multipass instance

This option only applies to macOS and Windows systems.

To expose a service running inside the instance on your host, you can use VirtualBox’s port forwarding feature, for example:

sudo VBoxManage controlvm "primary" natpf1 "myservice,tcp,,8080,,8081"

You can then open, say, http://localhost:8081/, and the service running inside the instance on port 8080 will be exposed.

To expose a service running inside the instance on your host, you can use VirtualBox’s port forwarding feature, for example:

& $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PSTools\PsExec.exe -s $env:VBOX_MSI_INSTALL_PATH\VBoxManage.exe controlvm "primary" natpf1 "myservice,tcp,,8080,,8081"

You can then open, say, http://localhost:8081/, and the service running inside the instance on port 8080 will be exposed.

Use VirtualBox to set up network bridging for a Multipass instance

This option only applies to macOS systems.

An often requested Multipass feature is network bridging. You can add a second network interface to the instance and expose it on your physical network.

First, stop the instance:

multipass stop primary

Now, find the network interface you want to bridge with, running the command:

VBoxManage list bridgedifs | grep ^Name:

You want the identifier before the second colon; for example en0 in the following sample output:

Name:            en0: Ethernet
Name:            en1: Wi-Fi (AirPort)
Name:            en2: Thunderbolt 1
Name:            en3: Thunderbolt 2
...

Finally, tell VirtualBox to use it as the “parent” for the second interface (see more info on bridging in VirtualBox documentation on this topic):

sudo VBoxManage modifyvm primary --nic2 bridged --bridgeadapter2 en0

Do not touch --nic1 as that’s used by Multipass.

You can then start the instance again:

multipass start primary

To find the name of the new interface, run this command:

multipass exec primary ip link | grep DOWN

In the following sample output, the name of the interface that we are looking for is enp0s8:

3: enp0s8: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000

Now, configure that new interface (Ubuntu uses netplan for that):

multipass exec -- primary sudo bash -c "cat > /etc/netplan/60-bridge.yaml" <<EOF
network:
  ethernets:
    enp0s8:                  # this is the interface name from above
      dhcp4: true
      dhcp4-overrides:       # this is needed so the default gateway
        route-metric: 200    # remains with the first interface
  version: 2
EOF

multipass exec primary sudo netplan apply

Finally, find the IP of the instance given by your router:

multipass exec primary ip address show dev enp0s8 up

For example:

3: enp0s8: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 08:00:27:2a:5f:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet <b>10.2.0.39</b>/24 brd 10.2.0.255 scope global dynamic enp0s8
       valid_lft 86119sec preferred_lft 86119sec
    inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fe2a:5f55/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

All the services running inside the instance should now be available on your physical network under http://<instance IP>/.

Switch back to the default driver

See also: stop, local.driver

To switch back to the default qemu driver, first you need to stop all instances again:

multipass stop --all
multipass set local.driver=qemu

Here, too, existing instances will be migrated.

This will make you lose any customisations you made to the instance in libvirt.

If you want to switch back to the default driver, run:

multipass set local.driver=qemu

Instances created with VirtualBox don’t get transferred, but you can always come back to them.

If you want to switch back to the default driver:

multipass set local.driver=hyperv

Instances created with VirtualBox don’t get transferred, but you can always come back to them.

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

Previous Customise Multipass Next Migrate from Hyperkit to QEMU on macOS

Last updated 6 months ago. Help improve this document in the forum.

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How to set up the driver

Default driver

Install an alternative driver

Use the driver to view Multipass instances

Use VirtualBox to set up port forwarding for a Multipass instance

Use VirtualBox to set up network bridging for a Multipass instance

Switch back to the default driver