Hypervisors

Multipass – lightweight virtual machine manager

Multipass is a lightweight virtual machine manager for Linux, Windows and macOS. It is designed to create fresh Ubuntu environments with a single command, automatically downloads operating system images and supports cloud-init for reproducing cloud-style deployments on a local workstation.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

  • Launches ready-to-use Ubuntu virtual machines with a single command.
  • Finds, downloads and updates available operating system images.
  • Configures CPU cores, memory, storage and instance names.
  • Uses KVM on Linux, Hyper-V on Windows and QEMU on macOS.
  • Can use VirtualBox as an alternative backend on Windows and macOS.
  • Customizes instances during creation using cloud-init.
  • Opens interactive shells inside virtual machines.
  • Executes commands inside an instance directly from the host.
  • Starts, stops, suspends, restarts and deletes instances.
  • Displays instance state, network addresses and resource usage.
  • Mounts host directories inside instances.
  • Transfers files and directory trees between hosts and instances.
  • Creates and restores snapshots.
  • Supports bridged and custom network interfaces.
  • Defines host-side aliases for commands running inside instances.

Website: https://github.com/canonical/multipass
Support:
Developer: Canonical Ltd
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Multipass is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.


Related Software

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VirtualBoxPowerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization software
QuickemuWrapper for QEMU that automatically “does the right thing”
QEMUMachine emulator and virtualizer
BoxesView, access, and manage remote and virtual systems
virt-managerDesktop tool for managing virtual machines via libvirt
IncusSecure and powerful system container and virtual machine manager
QuickguiGaphical user interface for the Quickemu virtual machine manager.
CassowaryRun Windows virtual machine on Linux

Read our verdict in the software roundup.


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