Configure Multipass's default logging level

Multipass Documentation
1

See also: Logging levels

This document demonstrates how to configure the default logging level of the Multipass service. Changing the logging level can be useful, for example, if you want to decrease the size of logging files or get more detailed information about what the daemon is doing. Logging levels can be set to one of the following: error, warning, info, debug, or trace, with case sensitivity.

Contents:

Changing the default logging level

Linux

First, stop the Multipass daemon:

$ sudo snap stop multipass

After that, create the override config file, replacing <level> with your desired logging level:

$ sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/system/snap.multipass.multipassd.service.d/
$ sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/snap.multipass.multipassd.service.d/override.conf <<EOF
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/snap run multipass.multipassd --verbosity <level>
EOF
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Finally, start the Multipass daemon:

$ sudo snap start multipass

macOS

First, become root:

$ sudo su

Stop the Multipass daemon:

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

Then, open /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist in your favorite text editor and edit the path /dict/array/string[2] from debug to the logging level of your choice.

Finally, start the Multipass daemon:

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

Windows

First, open an administrator privileged PowerShell prompt.

Stop the Multipass service:

PS> Stop-Service Multipass

Then, edit the Multipass service registry key with the following command:

PS> Set-ItemProperty -path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Multipass -Name ImagePath -Value "'C:\Program Files\Multipass\bin\multipassd.exe' /svc --verbosity <level>"

Replacing <level> with your desired logging level.

Finally, start the Multipass service:

PS> Start-Service Multipass

Let us know how this worked for you and what you’d like to see next!

2

Just a little bit of feedback: it would be useful to list the valid logging levels here: “error”, “warning”, “info”, “debug”, or “trace”.
The link to the “Logging levels” page doesn’t say it should be all small caps, and “–verbosity Debug” doesn’t work.

I guess it would be even better if the daemon just did a .tolower() on the parameter. I might look into that later, but even then it would be nice to have the options explicit here.

3

Hi @nielsreijers,

Thanks for your feedback on this page! I have made some changes to the opening paragraph to include the valid logging levels.

Let me know if this makes it more clear! Also, if you think we need to ignore case when checking logging levels, feel free to create an issue on Github. where it will get more attention.

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