Johnny Matthews | Enable GUI applications in Multipass

Multipass allows MacOS users to quickly spin up local Ubuntu-based VMs from the command line. It’s created by the lovely folks at Canonical and it’s super simple to use. However, there are a few steps you need to take in order to run GUI applications on the VM and have them displayed on MacOS. This guide assumes you’ve already got Multipass installed and have a VM ready to go. This was written on 29th of April 2025.

We’ll split this up into sections based on the machine you’re running things on. Let’s start with your MacOS device:

MacOS device

  1. Install Xquarts:
brew install --cask xquartz
  1. Restart your device. Kinda annoying I know, but it’s necessary.
  2. Once you’ve booted back up, open XQuarts.
  3. In the top menubar, select XQuarts -> Settings.

  1. Select the security tab and check Allow connections from network clients.
  2. Restart XQuartz.
  3. Grab the IP address of your VM. Replace hackbox with whatever you called your VM:
multipass list | grep hackbox | awk '{print $3}'

192.168.64.8

You can also just run multipass list to view all your VM details:

multipass list

Name                    State             IPv4             Image
hackbox                 Running           192.168.64.8     Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
  1. Allow connections to the X server:
xhost +192.168.64.8
  1. Get your device’s IP address on the network:
ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}'

192.168.228.115

Make a note of this IP address; we’re gonna use it in a few seconds.

Virtual machine

Now we’re gonna move into the VM running in Multipass:

  1. Update the package list and install x11-apps:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y x11-apps
  1. Set the DISPLAY variable to point to your MacOS device’s X server, appending :0 to the end of the IP address:
export DISPLAY=192.168.228.115:0
  1. Try and run xclock:

  1. That’s it!

For future session

  1. On your Mac:
# Start XQuartz:
open -a XQuartz

# Get the IP of your VM running in Multipass:
VMIPADDRESS=(multipass list | grep hackbox | awk '{print $3}')

# Allow connections
xhost +$VMIPADDRESS

# Get your Mac's current IP (it might change after every restart):
ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}'
  1. In your VM:
export DISPLAY=<YOUR_MAC_IP>:0