Scripts for setting up Multipass virtual machines.

Why to sandbox?

World is a risky place. Sandboxing allows you to separate business account (emails etc.) from developer account (that pulls in stuff from third party sources on the Internet), without disturbing the workflow, too much.

One can use containers for development, but Docker Desktop feels too bloated, for this author.

Discipline

Sandboxing of course needs discipline. The mp approach is done so that:

1. Tooling is separate from development repos

   This is important so that your repos are not cluttered by toolchain choices. It also allows the repo to work "just fine" with native tooling (on Ubuntu Linux), if someone so wishes. This is especially important for open source projects: we do not impose using mp on others!!!

2. Composability

   The internal structure allows to take any Ubuntu VM, and curry certain tools on top of it. E.g. npm; then wrangler if you need such. Or Rust, and curry embedded tooling on top. Things aren't rigid, and aren't repeated.

Alternatives

1. Local VM's

   • Linux machines

2. Fully cloud-based sandbox-as-a-service

   • Jetbrains Space
   • ..other vendors have similar

   This can be ideal for you, but this author prefers to have the option of locally hosted, offline-capable development.

• Latest Multipass installed

The system is intended to work on all macOS, Linux and Windows hosts, but is only tested on macOS. If you find issues, please create one!

Note: For Windows, Pro versions of the OS are recommended since only they provide Hyper-V (native) virtualization.

$ rust/prep.sh
[...]

• rust/+emb/prep.sh
• npm/prep.sh

Do read the README in the particular recipe's subfolder: they may have vital extra information that complements this!

Multipass IP (rust): 192.168.64.74

cargo 1.80.1 (376290515 2024-07-16)
rustc 1.80.1 (3f5fd8dd4 2024-08-06)
usbip (usbip-utils 2.0)

To add a project folder to be shared between the host (macOS) and the Linux side:

$ multipass stop rust-emb
$ multipass mount --type native {path-to-folder} rust-emb:
$ multipass start rust-emb

[!HINT] See below, how you can automatically recreate mounts by adding a custom.mounts.list file.

Then:

$ multipass shell rust-emb

You are now in an Ubuntu sandbox.

Change your Multipass terminal's look by (right click) > Show Inspector. Different coloring helps tremendously!

Figure 1. Ocean is the author's favourite

The rust/+emb, npm VM setups support files for setting one's environment variables, and/or folder mapping. The intention is that this makes it easier for you to re-create such environments from scratch.

Example:

# a comment
CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN=...

Example:

~/Git/website

You may use ~ for the host's home. The folders will be mapped to the VM home (/home/ubuntu/). If you want other targets, mount them manually - or edit the prep scripts to extend the syntax.

The issues in "troubleshooting" (below) came about when the author tried to do some state-changing commands on running (not stopped) VM's. Don't.

Multipass (versions past 1.13) is very fragile in this regard. Stop VM's before:

• restarting your host computer (YES!!)
• updating Multipass itself
• changing any mounts, or VM parameters: CPU count, memory, disk size
• deleting a VM

Stopping a VM explicitly seems to keep things running more smoothly. If you end up in a problem, don't fret: part of the mp approach's point is to be able to re-build development accounts easily and with least manual tuning.

If you get:

$ mp stop --force rust-emb
[2024-08-30T12:30:41.371] [error] [rust-emb] process error occurred Crashed program: qemu-system-x86_64; error: Process crashed
[2024-08-30T12:30:41.373] [error] [rust-emb] error: program: qemu-system-x86_64; error: Process crashed

...restart the Multipass service, and retry the stop (no host reboot is needed):

$ sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist
$ sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist

$ mp stop rust-emb

If you get:

start failed: cannot connect to the multipass socket

Don't try to be brave. Just restart the computer!!!

If you get:

launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.

Just restarting the daemon was enough.