How to access logs
Logs are our first go-to when something goes wrong. Multipass is comprised of a daemon process (service) and the CLI and GUI clients, each of them reporting on their own health.
The multipass command accepts the --verbose option (-v for short), which can be repeated to go from the default (error) level through warning, info, debug up to trace.
We use the underlying platform’s logging facilities to ensure you get the familiar behaviour wherever you are.
On Linux, systemd-journald is used, integrating with the de-facto standard for this on modern Linux systems.
To access the daemon (and its child processes’) logs:
journalctl --unit 'snap.multipass*'
The Multipass GUI produces its own logs, that can be found under ~/snap/multipass/current/data/multipass_gui/multipass_gui.log
On macOS, log files are stored in /Library/Logs/Multipass, where multipassd.log has the daemon messages. You will need sudo to access it.
The Multipass GUI produces its own logs, that can be found under ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.canonical.multipassGui/multipass_gui.log
On Windows, the Event system is used and Event Viewer lets you access them. Our logs are currently under “Windows Logs/Application”, where you can filter by “Multipass” Event source. You can then export the selected events to a file.
Logs from the installation and uninstall process can be found under %APPDATA%\Local\Temp. Sort the contents of the directory by “Date Modified” to bring the newest files to the top. The name of the file containing the logs follows the pattern MSI[0-9a-z].LOG.
The Multipass GUI produces its own logs, that can be found under %APPDATA%\com.canonical\Multipass GUI\multipass_gui.log
Errors or typos? Topics missing? Hard to read? Let us know or open an issue on GitHub.