How to modify an instance
This document shows further ways to customize an instance outside of the launch command using the Multipass settings.
Set the CPUs , RAM or disk space of an instance
See also:
local.<instance-name>.cpus,local.<instance-name>.disk),local.<instance-name>.memory
You can set instance properties at launch time, but you can also update some of them 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
The disk size can only be increased.
When increasing the disk size of an instance, the partition may not expand automatically to use the new available space. This usually happens if the partition was already full when trying to increase the disk size.
In such cases, you need to expand the partition manually. To do so, shell into the instance and run the following command:
sudo parted /dev/sda resizepart 1 100%
The system will guide you through the configuration steps:
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/sda appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 4194304 blocks) or continue with the current setting. Fix/Ignore? fix Partition number? 1 Warning: Partition /dev/sda1 is being used. Are you sure you want to continue? Yes/No? yes
When done, run sudo resize2fs /dev/sda1.
You can view these properties using the get command, without the need to stop instances. For example, multipass get local.handsome-ling.cpus returns the configured number of CPUs, which in our example is “4”.
You can only update the properties of Stopped, non-deleted instances. If you try to update an instance that is in Running, Suspended, or Deleted status you’ll incur an error.
On the other hand, it’s always possible to fetch properties for all instances. Use multipass get --keys to obtain their settings keys.
Modifying instance settings is not supported when using the Hyperkit driver, which has been deprecated in favor of QEMU. The QEMU and VirtualBox drivers on Intel-based macOS hosts 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 your $HOME directory into 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 instance’s 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.
Example
Assign the primary status to an instance called “first”:
multipass set client.primary-name=first
This instance is picked up automatically by multipass start. When you run this command, the primary instance also automatically mounts the user’s home directory into a directory called Home:
...
Launched: first
Mounted '/home/ubuntu' into 'first:Home'
Run multipass stop to stop the primary instance, and then launch another instance named “second”:
multipass launch --name second
Now, change the primary instance to the existing “second” instance:
multipass set client.primary-name=second
From now on, the “second” instance will be used as the primary instance, so for example it will be used by default when you run the command multipass suspend.
When listing instances, the primary one is displayed first. For example, if you run multipass list now, you’ll see:
Name State IPv4 Image
second Suspended -- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
first Stopped -- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Errors or typos? Topics missing? Hard to read? Let us know or open an issue on GitHub.