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Using Multipass under macOS

Setup dependencies on your host machine

  1. Install Multipass using Homebrew:

    $ brew install --cask multipass
...
🍺  multipass was successfully installed!

  2. Verify the installation was successful:

    $ multipass version
multipass   1.13.1+mac
multipassd  1.13.1+mac

  3. If you don't have ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, you can generate one with ssh-keygen -t rsa

    • If you do not wish to set a password, just hit ENTER when asked for a passphrase
    • If you generated a key, close and reopen Terminal to start a new shell session

  4. Set up and configure XQuartz, an X11 display server for macOS

    • Download and install a DMG directly from the website
    • Logout/login or reboot the computer afterward
    • Allow X11 forwarding to your host by running xhost +
    • Once you have XQuartz running, go to its "Preferences" and check the "Allow connections from network clients" box

Setup your Multipass VM

  1. Create a Linux guest named primary; your primary instance gets special treatment with integration to your native filesystem:

    $ multipass launch --name primary --cpus 4 --mem 4G --disk 10G --cloud-init - <<EOF
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - $(cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub)
package_upgrade: true
packages:
  - build-essential
EOF

  2. You now have a Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) VM named primary with a default user named ubuntu:

    $ multipass list
Name                    State             IPv4             Image
primary                 Running           192.168.64.5     Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

  3. In Terminal, determine your Multipass VM's IP address and save it for later steps:

    $ IP_ADDRESS=$(multipass info primary --format csv | awk -F, '/^primary/ { print $3 }')
$ printf '%s\n' "${IP_ADDRESS:?failed to determine the Multipass VM IP address}"
192.168.64.5

  4. We can then use this VM using multipass shell or through SSH with X forwarding as follows:

    ssh -X ubuntu@${IP_ADDRESS:?}

Connect VSCode to your Multipass VM

  1. Open VSCode and click on the green button in the bottom left corner; this should open a menu listing several "Remote-SSH" options.
  2. Click "Remote-SSH: Connect to Host..." and enter ubuntu@${IP_ADDRESS:?} using the value you looked up in the previous section.
  3. This will open a new VSCode window; feel free to close the old window.
  4. After a brief installation of the VSCode back end onto your VM, the bottom left corner's green button should now read SSH: 192.168.64.5 (with your VM's actual IP address).