Don't get me wrong - AWS EC2 has its benefits, and if you're just starting out, definitely learn it. But cleaning up after yourself is a pain. You've got to remember to terminate instances, delete security groups, remove key pairs, and make sure you're not getting charged for forgotten EBS volumes. Not to forget, everything that comes with VPC as well.

☁️ If you need quick, disposable instances for testing and development, you're in the right place.

For those new to AWS, EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) lets you rent virtual servers in Amazon's data centres. You pick your server specs, operating system, and pay by the hour. It's incredibly powerful. You can scale up or down, access your instances from anywhere, and tap into Amazon's massive infrastructure. But all that convenience comes with a price tag.

What if instead of renting compute power, you used your own? And your own server is your laptop! That MacBook Pro or gaming laptop you're using? It's probably got more RAM and processing power than most basic EC2 instances. The difference is location: AWS runs in their data centre, but your machine runs locally, for free.

Before we dive into Multipass, let's talk specs. If you've got at least 8GB RAM and decent storage, you can run multiple virtual instances that would cost you $50-100+ monthly on AWS.

Multipass is nothing but a lightweight tool that lets you launch and manage Ubuntu instances locally, mimicking the EC2 experience without the cost. It is a powerful tool for developers who want the flexibility of cloud instances without the ongoing costs. Next time you need a quick Ubuntu VM, skip the EC2 dashboard and try Multipass on your own machine!

🚀 To summarise :

• Cost Savings: No more hourly EC2 bills for dev and test environments.

• Speed: Instantly launch and destroy VMs on your laptop or desktop.

• Simplicity: Multipass uses simple commands, similar to AWS CLI.

• Isolation: Each instance is a clean Ubuntu VM, just like a fresh EC2 instance.

In this article, we'll use a Linux operating system for easy installation steps. You can however do this on Windows and MacOS as well, though the commands will differ slightly. This guide is intended for DevOps engineers, students, and developers who want to experiment with containers, Kubernetes, and monitoring tools without the cost and complexity of cloud infrastructure. Our goal is to deploy Prometheus, the most popular monitoring tool, and access it via the VM that Multipass provides. Let’s get started!

Step 1 → Check Your Available Memory 💻

Before we start spinning up virtual instances, let's see what we're working with. You'll want at least 4-8GB of free RAM to comfortably run virtual machines.

Command used :

free -h
#or
df -h

Demonstration :

Used (active programs) 2.4GB + Available (free + reclaimable cache) 4.4GB \= 6.8GB (Enough to run our VM’s)

Step 2 → System Update

Commands used :

sudo apt update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Demonstration :

We are ensuring the system is current and package lists are fresh, which helps avoid potential conflicts or outdated package information when installing Multipass.

Step 3 → Install Multipass

Commands used :

sudo snap install multipass
multipass version

Demonstration :

This is where we install the multipass and check its version.

Step 4 → Launch Your First Virtual Machine

Commands used :

# specified resources
multipass launch --name first-vm --cpus 2 --mem 3G --disk 20G

Demonstration :

By specifying resources, you get full control over how much CPU, RAM, and storage your VM uses. If you don’t prefer it, use the default instead : multipass launch --name first-vm

Step 5 → View Instance Information

Command used :

multipass info first-vm

Demonstration :

Let's double-check that your VM was created with the resources you requested :

• CPU(s): 2 ✅ (matches our --cpus 2 request)

• Memory usage: 350.5MiB out of 2.9GiB ✅ (shows ~3GB total as requested with --mem 3G)

• Disk usage: 1.9GiB out of 19.3GiB ✅ (shows ~20GB total as requested with --disk 20G)

Your VM is running exactly as specified → 2 CPUs, 3GB RAM, and 20GB disk space.

Step 6 → List All Your Virtual Machines

Command used :

multipass list

Demonstration :

NOTE : It is important to remember your VM’s IP. In my case, it is 10.246.162.180

This command shows you every VM you've created, their current status, and IP addresses. Think of it as your local server dashboard!

Step 7 → Connect to Your Virtual Machine 🖥️

Command used :

multipass shell first-vm

Demonstration :

See how seamless Multipass is compared to EC2 instances? Multipass dropped you directly into your Ubuntu instance with just multipass shell first-vm. No SSH keys to generate, no .pem files to download and manage, no complicated connection strings like ssh -i <key_pair>.pem ubuntu@<ec2_public_ ip_address> and no security group configurations to worry about. Just instant access to your virtual server!

Step 8 → Test Your VM

Command used :

cat /etc/os-release

Demonstration :

Experiment freely. This environment is completely separate from your host machine. Here are some basic Linux commands you can try further :

whoami
hostname  
uname -a
df -h
free -h

Step 9 → Update Your Virtual Machine

Commands used :

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Demonstration :

Step 10 → Install Docker 🐳

Docker is required and is a prerequisite to run your minikube cluster.

Commands used :

# docker commands
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$UBUNTU_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
sudo docker run hello-world
sudo usermod -aG docker ubuntu
newgrp docker

# check if docker is running
sudo systemctl status docker
docker --version
docker ps

# if it is not running
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

Demonstration :

Step 11 → Install Kubernetes CLI (kubectl)

Kubectl is the command-line tool you'll use to interact with your Kubernetes cluster. Think of it as your remote control for managing pods, services, and deployments.

Commands used :

curl -O https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon-eks/1.33.3/2025-08-03/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
curl -O https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon-eks/1.33.3/2025-08-03/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl.sha256
sha256sum -c kubectl.sha256
chmod +x ./kubectl
mkdir -p $HOME/bin && cp ./kubectl $HOME/bin/kubectl && export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

Demonstration :

Step 12 → Install and Start Minikube

The official docs have an interactive installer guide that lets you pick your exact setup. Here's what we'll use for this tutorial, but feel free to customise.

Access the minikube documentation.

Commands used :

# Installer type: Debian package
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube_latest_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i minikube_latest_amd64.deb

minikube start

Demonstration :

Step 13 → Install Helm Package Manager

Commands used :

# Install helm
curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh

# Verify installation
helm version

Demonstration :

Step 14 → Deploy Prometheus with Helm

Commands used :

# add Prometheus Helm repository
helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

# install Prometheus
helm install prometheus prometheus-community/prometheus

# check if pods are running
kubectl get pods

Demonstration :

Step 15 → Access Prometheus Dashboard

Commands used :

# Get the Prometheus server service name
kubectl get svc

# Port-forward to access from host browser
kubectl port-forward --address 0.0.0.0 svc/prometheus-server 9090:80

Demonstration :

🔴 LIVE :

We're accessing our Prometheus dashboard through the VM's IP address at http://10.246.162.180:9090. Prometheus itself is running inside the Kubernetes cluster (which is inside the VM), but we're using kubectl port-forwarding to make it accessible on the VM's network interface.

Your IP would be different than mine. Understand the format :

http://_____________:9090 (the blank space that you see must use your VM's IP).

Step 16 → Exit Your Virtual Machine

When you're done working, logout from your instance.

Command used :

exit

Demonstration :

You'll return to your host machine, but your VM continues running in the background with all services intact.

Step 17 → Clean Up Your Virtual Machines

When you no longer need your instance, destroy it.

Commands used :

# Check if your instance is running
multipass list

# Stop a running VM (keeps it for later)
multipass stop first-vm

# Delete a VM (removes it completely)
multipass delete first-vm

# Permanently remove deleted VMs
multipass purge

# Verify if it's deleted
multipass list

Demonstration :

With Multipass, you can experiment fearlessly, break things, delete everything, and start fresh as many times as you want. Perfect for learning, testing different configurations, or just wanting a clean development environment!

Recreate/destroy as much as you want with your specified resources according to your needs. It's a playground you create to learn and try new things. Break it, fix it, start over. That's how real learning happens.

If you found this article helpful, share it with your friends, peers, or anyone who would find this useful! 🌱