multipass networking is unreliable

[marcbrevoort-cyberhive]

Describe the bug Networking on multipass instances appears to be spotty. Sometimes it stops working spontaneously (no config changes). Sometimes a reinstall of multipass fixes it. Sometimes it doesn't.

To Reproduce Tried using multipass intensively for networking on several nodes

Expected behavior Networking to keep working if no config changes are made.

Logs Please provide logs from the daemon, see accessing logs on where to find them on your platform.

Additional info

• OS: Various. Observed on MacOS and Linux.
• multipass version 1.12.2 /1.12.2+mac
• multipass info --all (varies)
• multipass get local.driver -qemu

Additional context Add any other context about the problem here.

[townsend2010]

Hi @marcbrevoort-cyberhive,

Sorry you are having this issue. Could you please describe in more detail what symptoms you are experiencing such as:

• Does this just occur while the instance is running?
• Did you use the --network option when launching the instance to use a different network?
• What type of workload are you running on the network?
• What is your instance topology like, ie, 1, 2, 3 or more instances and perhaps in some sort of cluster?
• Are you able to multipass shell into an instance that is exhibiting the issue?
• Could you please provide logs that hopefully capture when this problem occurs?

Thanks!

[marcbrevoort-cyberhive]

Hi,

When this issue occurs it is on a running instance. It will manifest itself by logging in to the vm with multipass shell and trying to access the network; there will be no response to any pings to say 8.8.8.8, whilst the host can access this IP just fine. This would just be on the default network (no --network parameter supplied). I've seen this occur even with a single instance running. From the host, "apt-get remove multipass " followed by "apt-get install multipass" has been known to fix the issue, but it's also been observed to come back without any configuration changes to multipass. It's all rather strange! Sadly as I've removed my multipass VMs since last occurrence, I have no further logs for you, but multiple colleagues have had similar experiences. We're all finding multipass sets a great example from a usability perspective (oh, it CAN be straightforward to get a VM going!) but these network issues have been tempering our excitement somewhat.

[townsend2010]

Hi @marcbrevoort-cyberhive,

Since multipass shell works, the NAT'ed network that is set up works, but what is curious is that no network traffic occurs outside of the NAT'd network.

Are you and/or your colleagues using a VPN, firewall, or some other corporate network tooling? These are known to mess up the routing of the NAT'd network. Have you also had a look at https://multipass.run/docs/troubleshoot-networking to help better diagnose what may be happening?

I will monitor this issue for any other further info from you. Thanks!

[marcbrevoort-cyberhive]

We most certainly are using those, the strange thing is that things might randomly stop working but then following a full reinstall they do again. So far I haven't found a way to reproduce it at will.

[townsend2010]

Hi @marcbrevoort-cyberhive,

Perhaps when enabling the VPN, that's when it doesn't work? Have you had a look at https://multipass.run/docs/troubleshoot-networking#heading--potential-workaround-for-vpn-conflicts? Other than that, it is really hard for us to tell how your networking is set up on your Macs.