To further simplify the node creation the nodes can be both created and specified in one call to mpn ("**M**ultipass-**N**odes") script. This is accomplished by using a specific way of naming the nodes that also instructs mpn exactly how those nodes should be created.

The naming convention is described in the next section.

NAME
   mpn - Create multipass node by naming convention
USAGE
   mpn [-h] [-v] [-s] NODE_NAME [NODE_NAME [NODE_NAME ... ]]
SYNOPSIS
      -h        : Print help and exit
      -n        : No execution. Only display actions.
      -s        : Silent
      -v        : Print version and exit

To create nodes one simply specifies one or more nodes using the naming format as arguments (see next section) for example:

% mpn ub20ml01 ub22fs01 ub24fm01

This will create three new nodes based on Ubuntu 20,22 and 24 LTS images. The Ubuntu 22, and the Ubuntu 24 will both have
a full development environment in a "small" node and "medium" node respectively.

The Ubuntu 20 based node will be a minimal development environment in a "large" node.

When creating multiple nodes the script will kick of up to four parallel node creations. This greatly reduces the total build/creation time.

Node naming convention

ub<MAJOR_RELEASE><CONFIG><SIZE><NODE_NUMBER>

MAJOR_RELEASE

20 (="focal")
22 (="jammy")
24 (="noble")

CONFIG

b (=Basic node, no dev tools). Using cloud-init file: mini-config.yaml
f (=Full dev node), Using cloud-init file: fulldev-config.yaml
m (=Minimal dev node), Using cloud-init file: minidev-config.yaml

SIZE

s (= Small=500MB RAM/5GB Disk)
m (= Medium=1GB RAM/7GB Disk)
l (= Large=2GB RAM/7GB Disk)
x (= X-Large=4GB RAM/15GB Disk)
h (= Humungous=8GB RAM/15GB Disk)
z (= Zuper Humungous=12GB RAM/15GB Disk)

NODE_NUMBER

nn Arbitrarily chosen two digit number to avoid name conflicts since all node names must be unique.

Node name examples

Some examples of valid names are:

ub24bz01 - A Ubuntu 24 image, basic cloud config, Zuper Humungus machine size
ub20bl01 - A Ubuntu 20 image, basic cloud config, large machine size
ub22mx12 - A Ubuntu 22 image, minimal development setup, x-large machine size

Note: All nodes will have 2 CPUs. If more CPUSs are needed then the nodes must be created with the mkmpnode.sh directly using the -p option.*