DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling

Multipass Local Virtual Machines

Nov 10, 2023

Chris Townsend, engineering manager for Canonical's Multipass team, joins Bret and Nirmal to discuss using Multipass as the easiest local VM for Docker and Kubernetes. They explore automating VM creation, virtualization backends, networking options, and Multipass blueprints. They also cover running Docker in a VM while using it from the host, spinning up Ubuntu with FitElement, using PowerShell with Hyper-V, assuming prior knowledge, exposing Multi-Pass to networks, running multi-architecture VMs, and upcoming features.

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Introduction

00:00 • 3min

Engineering manager discusses multi-pass and its origin story

02:31 • 3min

Spinning up Ubuntu with FitElement

05:38 • 15min

Usage of PowerShell and Openness of the Project

20:34 • 2min

Assuming Prior Knowledge and Exposing Multi-Pass to Networks

22:47 • 2min

Running multi-architecture VMs with multi-pass

24:40 • 8min

Bret and Nirmal are joined by Chris Townsend, the engineering manager for Canonical's Multipass team, to discuss how to use Multipass as the easiest local virtual machine for Docker, Kubernetes and more!

Multipass is my go-to solution for quickly creating local virtual machines of Ubuntu. I teach it in my courses, I've used it for many years, and I was excited to have Chris on to talk about the ways to automate the creation of a VM in Multipass, and dig into the various virtualization, backends and networking options.

We also talk about Multipass blueprints where in a demo, he shows off how to create a VM with Docker installed in a single command. It actually reminds me of Docker Machine, if you've been around a while. That also mounts your code directly into the VM and sets a host alias so that the Docker commands will pass through to Docker in the VM transparently.

If you can imagine that it basically means that you can run Docker in the VM and use it from the host as if it isn't in a VM. And then we had some great audience questions about various features of Multipass and how to use it for multi-node clustering and exposing VMs to your local network.

Live recording of the complete show from September 21, 2023 is on YouTube (Ep. #235). Includes demos.

★Topics★
Multipass website

Creators & Guests

Cristi Cotovan - Editor
Beth Fisher - Producer
Bret Fisher - Host
Nirmal Mehta - Host
Christopher Townsend - Guest

(00:00) - Intro
(01:42) - Introducing Chris Townsend
(02:43) - Multipass Elevator Pitch
(07:10) - Getting Started with Multipass
(16:11) - Interacting with an Instance
(18:21) - Changing Image Storage Location
(19:32) - Does Multipass work with Hyper-V Cluster?
(22:29) - Expose the Internal Bridge Network via Multipass
(29:14) - The Future of Multipass

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