Rename instance

[johnsca]

It would be nice to be able to rename an existing instance.

[townsend2010]

@johnsca, yeah I think that's a good idea:)

[Saviq]

We should switch to using UUIDs in image paths etc., and have the name just be a label.

[brlin-tw]

I would really like to have this implemented for making snapcraft-<snapname> instances which are created by multipass launch <image_url> due to download issues.

[Saviq]

I would really like to have this implemented for making snapcraft-<snapname> instances which are created by multipass launch <image_url> due to download issues.

Hey @Lin-Buo-Ren, would you please file a new issue describing your download issues? Note snapcraft uses a cloud-init template that you'd need to use. There's no reason why you couldn't multipass launch --name snapcraft-<snapname> snapcraft:core18 to start with - I believe snapcraft will realize the instance is there and use it.

[brlin-tw]

@Saviq I later found there's a --name option in the multipass launch command that I can make use of, thanks for your help!

[Saviq]

@Lin-Buo-Ren yes, that's exactly what I meant :)

[arafatx]

So we are not able to rename multpass instance in 2021?

[winkee01]

probably add a rename sub command to multipass

[prncoprs]

Seem that we can not rename multipass instances now?

[glowinthedark]

while there doesn't seem to be an option to rename an existing instance, following the hint from @brlin-tw it is possible to use a predefined name (e.g. u20) on creation with:

multipass launch --name u20 ubuntu

[peret2000]

It seems a very basic functionality. Once an instance is created, it may grow in functions, contents, and seems logical to be able to rename it

[chav-n]

The instance resets the hostname on restart. In order to avoid this comment the lines
- set_hostname
- update_hostname
- update_etc_hosts
in the "/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg" file.

[ChangHoon-Sung]

Any updates?

[artsra]

Bump

[troxycoru]

Does someone know how to rename instance (may be via renaming instance file or any config files)?

[pjmattingly]

This would also be very helpful for my usecase.

Then also, "--name" has no help dialog; It would be useful to know what the naming restrictions are. For example, multipass launch --name "00340599maas" failed, but multipass launch --name "case00340599" works.

[pythoninthegrass]

So we are not able to rename multpass instance in 2021?

2023 (almost 2024)

[huyz]

2023 (almost 2024)

The most useless kind of comment on GitHub.

There used to be a time when GitHub users weren't so entitled…

[pythoninthegrass]

@huyz Renaming VMs is table stakes for hypervisors. Leaving an issue open for 5 years is hardly entitled. Either close the issue as "won't do" or put a time line on it.

[townsend2010]

An update regarding this...yes, we made a bad decision in the early days of Multipass to key everything off of the instance name and making assumptions around that. The fact we did that has made this seemingly easy request much more difficult than it should be. That said, we are working on a cloning feature which essentially copies and "renames" an instance (among some other things), but we think we can reuse the instance renaming part of that to allow renaming of existing instances. I'm not sure exactly when we can get to work on this after clone is released as we have a lot on our plates, but I really hope we can fix this in 2024.

[ylluminate]

Thank you for your work on this @townsend2010. As strange of a demand as it is to make of your great tool and an open source project, it is useful and still highly desired - as you know.

I have found myself finding real power with multipass on macOS to run light Linux (Ubuntu) instances in the background instead of using heavier Parallels in cases where I don't need a GUI. Unfortunately I've been bitten a few times now making an instance that I did not plan to have become a long term and integral component of workflow... I find myself highly frustrated to not be able to rename an instance to more meaningful names in these cases.