Install Quadrans with Multipass

What is Multipass

Multipass is a mini-cloud on your workstation using native hypervisors of all the supported plaforms (Windows, macOS and Linux), it will give you an Ubuntu command line in just a few minutes and allows you to create a secure and fully working Quadrans node in your computer.

With Multipass you will create a virtual server with basic environment and you can install the latest Quadrans node for Ubuntu Linux without without having to perform complicated steps.

Before to start

Multipass provides a command line interface to launch, manage and generally fiddle about with instances of Linux. First of wall you need to simply prepare your computer to create an environment.

Suggested requirements:

  • Computer Desktop, Server or Virtual Machine

  • 4 Core 64bit CPU

  • 6 GB RAM

  • 200 GB storage

The Multipass virtual machine will use:

  • 2 Core

  • 2 GB RAM

  • 100 GB storage

Download and install Multipass on Windows 10

To get Multipass for Windows, download the latest installer from the official GitHub releases page. It is the .exe file.

Prerequisites

Multipass will work without additional requirements on Windows 10 Pro or Windows Enterprise, version 1803 (“April 2018 Update”) or later that integrate the Hyper-V virtualization provider (or hypervisor).

For Windows 10 Home user (or if you want to change the virtualization provider) you need to download and install Oracle VirtualBox from the official website.

Installation

Run the installer and it will guide you through the steps necessary.

  • You will need to allow the installer to gain Administrator privileges;

  • Select your preferred hypervisor (Hyper-V is the default or Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise, or VirtualBox is mandatory for Windows 10 Home);

  • Select Add multipass to the system PATH for all users;

  • Confirm the installation folder;

  • Click on Install and reboot at the end of the process.

Download and install Multipass on Mac OS

Work in progress

Download and install Multipass on Linux

Multipass for Linux is published as a snap package. Before to start verify if your Linux distribution supports snap or how to get ready for snap.

After that, to install multipass simply type this command in your Terminal.

snap install multipass

Create the Quadrans virtual machine

Quadrans node minimum requirements are tipically a computer or VPS with 2 core CPU, 4 GB of RAM and 100 GB of hard disk. In Multipass configuration you can easily reduce to 2 GB of RAM your virtual machine.

To create a new Multipass instance you can use the following command inside the Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell, and Mac OS or Linux Terminal:

multipass launch -c 2 -m 2G -d 100G --name quadrans

This will automatically create a new virtual machine with the latest version of Ubuntu LTS with minimal setup.

For your information -c 2 means the number of logical core allocated from your CPU, -m 2 to allocate 2 GB of RAM, -d 100G to create a virtual drive of 100 GB for data, –name quadrans is the name of your VM. You can customize and increase the allocation of resources for your virtual machine based on the power of your computer and the available amount of logical core, RAM or disk space.

Connect and install the Quadrans node

Once your virtual machine were created you can execute commands or connect to your enviroment. For the first run and the installation of your node use this command.

multipass shell quadrans

You will be connected to your virtual machine. From here you can simply copy and paste the commands to use the self-installer for Ubuntu Linux.

wget http://repo.quadrans.io/installer/gqdc-installer.sh
sudo bash gqdc-installer.sh

The installer will guide you through the steps necessary.

At the end of the process your node will start to sync and you can verify the status of your node by typing

sudo journalctl -f | grep Quadrans

And press CTRL C in your keyboard to return to the shell.

Type exit to disconnect from the virtual machine, the node will remain active.

Useful informations

Your Multipass virtual machine will be automatically launched on boot as a service, you don’t need to log-in on your operating system to start the Quadrans node.

You can control your virtual machine on Windows directly from Multipass GUI systray application that allows you to start a new default Multipass VM (with 1 core, 1 GB, 10 GB storage) or control your Quadrans Virtual Machine to stop, connect to the Shell or restart if powered off. From that Icon you can also select if the Multipass service must start on boot or not.

You can also controll your Multipass from your Terminal or Windows PowerShell:

You can stop the virtual machine with this command:

multipass stop quadrans

To start the virtual machine the command is similar:

multipass start quadrans

You can obtain information about the status and your virtual machine (CPU load, disk usage, memory usage, etc.) with this command:

multipass info quadrans

You can execute a command outside the virtual machine, for example to check the status of your node:

multipass exec quadrans -- systemctl status quadrans-node

To update your virtual machine:

multipass exec quadrans -- sudo apt update
multipass exec quadrans -- sudo apt upgrade -y

To connect to your virtual machine and use the Linux console:

multipass shell quadrans

To disconnect:

exit

On Windows machine Multipass will install a simple to use systray icon. By clicking with the right button of you mouse you will find the “quadrans” virtual machine and you can start, stop or connect (shell) directly from this menu.