How to use Virt-Manager GUI to manage Multipass Ubuntu VMs

Virt Manager by RedHat is a popular graphical application developed to manage Virtual Machines running on the KVM hypervisor. Here we will learn the process to install it on Ubuntu 20.04 TLS Linux for managing Multipass VMs.

The Virtual Machine Manager also called virt-manager or VMM for short offers a uniform user interface for creating and managing virtual machines. VMM is based on libvirt, i.e the virtualization solutions that libvirt also supports are supported. These include QEMU, KVM, and Xen, but not VirtualBox or VMware Player.

VMM offers both a graphical user interface and several command-line programs. VMM is written entirely in Python.

We already have described the way to install and use Multipass on Ubuntu step by step for creating virtual machines. Here is that-  Install multiple Ubuntu VMs using Multipass on Ubuntu 20.04. Well, the multipass comes with its own taskbar window to instantly start and stop created virtual machines, however via Virt-Manager it becomes easier and user friendly…

Install Virt Manager GUI for Multipass

1. System update

Open a command terminal and run the system update command of Ubuntu to achieve the latest state of installed packages and rebuilding the repos cache.

sudo apt update

 

2. Install Virt Manager on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Here, I am assuming that you already have installed Multipass on your Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 Linux and now want to manage it through Virt Manager. Thus, to set it up this Linux Virtual Machine Manager type the following command in your terminal:

sudo apt-get install virt-manager

 

3.  Install libvirt daemon

VMM is based on libvirt and Multipass need to use libvirt daemon to get managed by Virt, thus makes sure libvirt daemon is installed on our system using this command:

sudo apt install libvirt-daemon-system

 

4. Allow Multipass to use local libvirt

As Libvirt is already on our Ubuntu system, however, we have to allow Multipass to access libvirt otherwise, we would not be able to manage it via Virt-Manager

snap connect multipass:libvirt

 

5. Stop All active Mulipass VMs

Before switching to Virt-Manager, turn off all active virtual machines running on Multipass.

multipass stop --all

 

6. Switch the driver

Finally, change the default driver of Multiplass from Qemu to Libvirt, which provides a daemon and allows the user to customize VMs easily using the GUI interface of VVM.

sudo multipass set local.driver=libvirt

 

7.  Run Virt-Manager to access Multipass VMs

Now, simply go to All Applications and search for Virt Manager, when its icon appears, click to launch it. You will see all your Multipass Virtual machines listed there.

Run Virt Manager to access Multipass VMs min

 

8. Get back to Default Driver (optional)

If you don’t want to manage your VMs through Virt Manager, then we can switch back to the default Qemu driver using the command:

multipass stop --all

sudo multipass set local.driver=qemu

Whereas to uninstall Virt Manager use:

sudo apt remove virt-manager

 

1 thought on “How to use Virt-Manager GUI to manage Multipass Ubuntu VMs”

  1. Hi,
    It’s really very handy to launch vms using multipass and manage using virt-manager GUI interface.
    Is there any way to launching multipass vms using virt-manager? just like we create qemu-kvm vms using virt-manger.

    Reply

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