This is an old revision of the document!
Other Windows 10 related notes
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets you run a Linux distribution on your Windows computer, without the overhead of a traditional Virtual Machine (VM) or dual-boot setup
More reading:
stdu@sadira034:~$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 63M Aug 24 14:52 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx stdu@sadira034:~$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1.2G Aug 24 15:20 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx stdu@sadira034:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade [sudo] password for stdu: Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [114 kB] Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease [265 kB] [...] 278 upgraded, 32 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 174 MB of archives. After this operation, 305 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y [...] stdu@sadira034:~$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 63M Aug 24 14:52 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx stdu@sadira034:~$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2.6G Aug 24 15:24 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx
C:\
. Microsoft instructions say The Windows Subsystem for Linux only runs on your system drive (usually this is your C: drive)C:\
(and you always need to keep enough free space on C:\
for regular Windows operation)/
and /home
partitions will always be on C:
, but the data files can be on any Windows disk/partition (or external drive) of the computer/mnt/
, so you can store data on other partitions (e.g. the content of the Windows D:\
partition will be available in /mnt/d
in Linux)C:\
: e.g. C:\Users\<your_login>
. Other users of the same Windows 10 computer would have to install Ubuntu again, in their own user directoryC:\Users\<your_login>
will not report an accurate size and number of files, because lots of files and directories are hidden! On the test laptop, the reported size of the user backed up directory (with SyncBackFree) was ~20 Gb (user data, WSL+Ubuntu, custom install of the CDAT 8.1 python distribution)C:
!C:
Powershell
in administrator modeStart
⇒W
⇒Windows PowerShell
then right-click on Windows PowerShell
and select Run as AdministratorCTRL
+<left click> on Windows Powershell
in the pull-down menu to get a Powershell
in administrator modeUbuntu
distributionUbuntu
will always automatically upgrade to the latest LTS
release available (contrary to Ubuntu-<even_number>.04
that will stick to the specified <even-number>
release)PS C:\> wsl --list --online NAME FRIENDLY NAME * Ubuntu Ubuntu Debian Debian GNU/Linux kali-linux Kali Linux Rolling openSUSE-42 openSUSE Leap 42 SLES-12 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v12 Ubuntu-16.04 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Ubuntu-18.04 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Ubuntu-20.04 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
PS C:\> wsl --install -d Ubuntu Installation en cours : Plateforme de machine virtuelle Plateforme de machine virtuelle a été installé. Installation en cours : Sous-système Windows pour Linux Sous-système Windows pour Linux a été installé. Téléchargement en cours : Noyau WSL Installation en cours : Noyau WSL Noyau WSL a été installé. Téléchargement en cours : Ubuntu L’opération demandée est réussie. Les modifications ne seront pas effectives avant que le système ne soit réamorcé.
bash
promptInstalling, this may take a few minutes... Please create a default UNIX user account. The username does not need to match your Windows username. For more information visit: https://aka.ms/wslusers Enter new UNIX username: stdu New password: Retype new password: passwd: password updated successfully Installation successful! To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>". See "man sudo_root" for details. Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64) * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com * Management: https://landscape.canonical.com * Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage System information as of Tue Aug 23 17:32:20 CEST 2022 System load: 0.0 Processes: 8 Usage of /: 0.4% of 250.98GB Users logged in: 0 Memory usage: 0% IPv4 address for eth0: 172.20.23.145 Swap usage: 0% stdu@sadira034:~$ echo $SHELL /bin/bash
Ubuntu
installationstdu@sadira034:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Release: 20.04 Codename: focal stdu@sadira034:~$ uname -a Linux sadira034 5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 #1 SMP Fri Apr 2 22:23:49 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux stdu@sadira034:~$ cat /proc/version Linux version 5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 (oe-user@oe-host) (x86_64-msft-linux-gcc (GCC) 9.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.34.0.20200220) #1 SMP Fri Apr 2 22:23:49 UTC 2021 stdu@sadira034:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sdb 251G 1.1G 238G 1% / tmpfs 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /mnt/wsl tools 472G 112G 361G 24% /init none 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /dev none 6.2G 4.0K 6.2G 1% /run none 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /run/lock none 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /run/shm none 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /run/user tmpfs 6.2G 0 6.2G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup drivers 472G 112G 361G 24% /usr/lib/wsl/drivers lib 472G 112G 361G 24% /usr/lib/wsl/lib C:\ 472G 112G 361G 24% /mnt/c D:\ 480G 2.6G 478G 1% /mnt/d
WSL
installationC:\Users\jypeter\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc
/mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/
stdu@sadira034:/mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages$ find /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/ -type f -print /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/Settings/roaming.lock /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/Settings/settings.dat /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/User.dat /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/User.dat.LOG1 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/User.dat.LOG2 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/UserClasses.dat /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/UserClasses.dat.LOG1 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/SystemAppData/Helium/UserClasses.dat.LOG2 stdu@sadira034:/mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1.2G Aug 24 11:37 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/ext4.vhdx
C:\Users\jypeter\AppData\Local\Temp\swap.vhdx
stdu@sadira034:~$ ls -lh /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 63M Aug 24 14:52 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/AppData/Local/Temp/swap.vhdx
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
stdu@sadira034:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Release: 20.04 Codename: focal stdu@sadira034:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade [sudo] password for stdu: Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [114 kB] Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease [265 kB] [...] 278 upgraded, 32 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 174 MB of archives. After this operation, 305 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y [...] stdu@sadira034:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS Release: 20.04 Codename: focal
PS C:\> wsl --status Distribution par défaut : Ubuntu Version par défaut : 2 La dernière mise à jour effectuée du Sous-système Windows pour Linux date du 23/08/2022 Les mises à jour WSL automatiques sont activées. Version du noyau : 5.10.16 PS C:\> wsl -l -v NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Running 2 PS C:\> wsl --terminate Ubuntu PS C:\> wsl -l -v NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Stopped 2 PS C:\> wsl --update Recherche de mises à jour en cours... Veuillez patienter Téléchargement de mises à jour en cours... Veuillez patienter. Installation en cours des mises à jour... Veuillez patienter Cette modification sera effective au prochain redémarrage complet de WSL. Pour forcer un redémarrage, exécutez « wsl --shutdown ». Version du noyau : 5.10.102.1 PS C:\> wsl --status [...] Version du noyau : 5.10.102.1 PS C:\> wsl cat /proc/version Linux version 5.10.102.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 (oe-user@oe-host) (x86_64-msft-linux-gcc (GCC) 9.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.34.0.20200220) #1 SMP Wed Mar 2 00:30:59 UTC 2022
Once you have completed the base installation steps, you'll get a Ubuntu machine, with a root and user account (pre-configured to use sudo
for commands that need root access) and lots of pre-installed applications (but no graphics).
Having a terminal you can efficiently interact with is the basis of your future work with WSL+Ubuntu! You can optionally read the ConEmu vs Hyper vs Terminus vs MobaXTerm Terminator vs Ubuntu WSL blog if you really want more details
The Default WSL+Ubuntu terminal is basically a bash shell running inside a regular Windows cmd
text console. You do not need to have an X server running to use it!
There are several ways to open a default terminal:
Start
menuStart
menu) → More → Pin to the task barubuntu
+<Enter> or wsl
+<Enter>
in the (Cortana) Search field on the task bar
Follow the steps in Copy and Paste arrives for Linux/WSL Consoles and you will then be able to copy/paste by using Shift+Ctrl+C/V
WSLtty allows you to use the efficient Mintty as a terminal for WSL. You do not need to have an X server running to use it!
wsltty-*-install-x86_64.exe
file)WSL terminal
icon on the desktopU
⇒Ubuntu terminal
and W
⇒WSL Terminal
in the Start
menuW
⇒WSLtty
folder, than you don't really need
Microsoft is working on a powerful replacement of the old cmd
terminal! Check Windows Terminal, Console and Command-Line @ github
Note: the Windows Terminal looks really promising, but will be nice when there is a GUI for editing the options (rather the editing a json file with a text editor…) and a way to select xterm-style copy-pasting. See Feature request: add xterm-style select/copy/paste options
You can install additional graphical terminals inside the Linux running in WSL, but you will need to have a running X server if you want to open them. In these terminals, the usual Linux copy/paste rules will apply!
apt-get install xterm
xterm &
apt-get install xfce4-terminal
xfce4-terminal &
You can optionally read the detailed WSL File System Support page if you want to (try to) understand how things work and how both systems can share files.
/
from Windows by opening the virtual \\wsl$
path in the Windows explorer (since Windows build 18342)\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<your_login>
/
directory is actually located in the following hidden sub-directory of the user's Windows home directory: C:\Users\<your_login>\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs
\\wsl$
path)
If you need to easily update files from both Linux and Windows, put them in a regular Windows directory (not in the hidden directory mentioned above, where the Linux system is installed)
Note: When you are in an explorer window, you can open a Windows terminal with Linux by holding Shift and right-clicking on a directory and choosing Linux in the context menu.
The Windows partitions are mounted under /mnt
in Linux:
$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 111G 30G 82G 27% / none 111G 30G 82G 27% /dev none 111G 30G 82G 27% /run none 111G 30G 82G 27% /run/lock none 111G 30G 82G 27% /run/shm none 111G 30G 82G 27% /run/user C: 111G 30G 82G 27% /mnt/c H: 366G 138M 366G 1% /mnt/h
Read the Mounting disks and network drives section if you want to access remote server disks on your local network, or just want to access USB disks/sticks on your local computer.
wslpath
command can be used to make Windows↔Linux path conversion$ date Thu Feb 20 11:18:57 CET 2020 $ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS Release: 18.04 Codename: bionic $ cat /proc/version Linux version 4.4.0-18362-Microsoft (Microsoft@Microsoft.com) (gcc version 5.4.0 (GCC) ) #476-Microsoft Fri Nov 01 16:53:00 PST 2019 $ uname -a Linux some_machine_name 4.4.0-18362-Microsoft #476-Microsoft Fri Nov 01 16:53:00 PST 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ dpkg --list Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-=====================-===============-===============-================================================ ii accountsservice 0.6.45-1ubuntu1 amd64 query and manipulate user account information ii acl 2.2.52-3build1 amd64 Access control list utilities ii acpid 1:2.0.28-1ubunt amd64 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface event ii adduser 3.116ubuntu1 all add and remove users and groups [...] ii xterm 330-1ubuntu2 amd64 X terminal emulator ii xxd 2:8.0.1453-1ubu amd64 tool to make (or reverse) a hex dump ii xz-utils 5.2.2-1.3 amd64 XZ-format compression utilities ii zerofree 1.0.4-1 amd64 zero free blocks from ext2, ext3 and ext4 file-s ii zlib1g:amd64 1:1.2.11.dfsg-0 amd64 compression library - runtime $ dpkg --list > /mnt/c/Scratch/jyp/pkg_initial_201601.txt $ wc -l /mnt/c/Scratch/jyp/pkg_initial_201601.txt 628 /mnt/c/Scratch/jypeter/pkg_initial_201601.txt
Full (example) list of installed packages: pkg_initial_201601.txt
Use the following to update your ubuntu installation:
$ sudo -s $ apt-get update $ apt-get upgrade
This is just place to store some technical information, that will probably not be needed by most people
sudo -s
), or sudo
when executing the apt*
installation commands, and othe admin commands
WSL will automatically try to use in the terminals the same language as the one used by the Windows 10 computer (ref), but this could lead later to some difficult to debug side-effects when you connect to remote Linux servers (e.g. the sort
command may give different results !).
It is safer to force the system to use a standard English version
$ sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF8 $ echo $LANG en_US.UTF8
apt-get tutorial if you are more used to Fedora/RedHat yum
/dnf
and rpm packages
dpkg -l
: list installed packagesdpkg -L package_name
: list files installed from package_name
dpkg -S path/command
: name of the package used to install path/command
$ dpkg -l | grep -i wsl ii ubuntu-wsl 1.417.3 amd64 Ubuntu on Windows tools - Windows Subsystem for Linux integration ii wslu 2.3.2-0ubuntu2~18.04.3 all collection of utilities for the Windows 10 Linux Subsystem $ dpkg -L wslu /. /etc /etc/profile.d /usr /usr/bin /usr/bin/wslfetch /usr/bin/wslsys /usr/bin/wslupath /usr/bin/wslusc /usr/bin/wslvar /usr/bin/wslview [...]
You will need to have an X server running locally on your Windows 10 machine if you want to display graphics generated by the Linux running locally, or on a remote server. Applications running in text mode only (e.g. vi
) do not require a running X server.
You will get a Can't open display error if no server is running (even if the DISPLAY
variable is correctly defined)
your_login@your_machine:~$ echo $DISPLAY localhost:0.0 your_login@your_machine:~$ xterm & xterm: Xt error: Can't open display: localhost:0.0 [Everything is fine after starting a local X server] jyour_login@your_machine:~$ xterm & [1] 55
Read the Installing and configuring an X server page
DISPLAY
variable in the shell by hand, or automatically in the shell configuration file(s):export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
~/.bashrc
filesetenv DISPLAY localhost:0.0
~/.login
, or the ~/.cshrc
file export DISPLAY=:0.0
will also work for using graphics locally, but will fail when trying to use graphics on a remote computer, with a connect /tmp/.X11-unix/X0: No such file or directory
error message (source)export DISPLAY=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2}'):0.0
in How to install Ubuntu 20.04 on Windows using WSL
Reminder: you need to use the root
account (with sudo -s
) in order to use the following commands
$ apt-get install gcc libglu1-mesa mesa-utils libsm6 x11-apps # Check the "Terminals started from Linux" section # if you need to install extra terminals # Install emacs $ apt-get install emacs # Install pdf (evince) and image (eog) viewers $ apt-get install evince eog # Install wslu to improve the Windows<->Linux communication $ apt-get install wslu # The packages below are useful for dealing with climate data # in netCDF files (and are also requirements of CLIMAF) $ aptitude install imagemagick nco cdo netcdf-bin ncview exiv2
Nothing to do! WSL is automatically updated, provided you have enabled the Get updates for other Microsoft products option
The Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
that was initially installed from the Windows Store when the test computer was running Win 10 1709
was automatically updated to Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
when the computer was updated to Win 10 1809
.
$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS Release: 18.04 Codename: bionic
We also ran the do-release-upgrade
command to complete the upgrade (from 16.04 to 18.04) [ More info from WSL team - more info from Ubuntu ]
And we then ran the usual upgrade commands. These commands can be run any time for updating the installed packages
$ sudo -s $ apt-get update $ apt-get upgrade
Full list of the resulting installed packages, generated with
$ dpkg --list >$ dpkg --list > /mnt/h/Scratch/jyp/pkg_190221.txt $ wc -l /mnt/h/Scratch/jyp/pkg_190221.txt 578 /mnt/h/Scratch/jyp/pkg_190221.txt
You can skip this section if you have just installed ubuntu, since you are already running the latest stable release available
The updates are for maintaining the same version of ubuntu (e.g. you go from version 18.04.2
to 18.04.5
), while upgrades are for going from one major version to the next (e.g 16.xx
⇒ 18.xx
⇒ 20.xx
). We try to only use the stable major releases, that have an even version number.
We use the LTS versions (Long Time Support) to ensure even more stability, which means that we will get updates of a given major release for quite some time after the next major release is available, so it is not mandatory to updgrade ubuntu if you are still receiving updates for the release you use
There should not be any risk, but it may be a good idea to create a backup of your current ubuntu before upgrading it!
Use sudo
for each command below, or just become root by using sudo su -
C:
do-release-upgrade
command and follow the instructionsdo-release-upgrade -d
apt-get dist-upgrade
and then try do-release-upgrade -d
again (see How to Solve the Upgrade Ubuntu Install Updates Error)sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument
error, temporarily replace the sleep
binary with an executable empty file. Do not forget to restore the original sleep command after the upgrade!!# sleep 1 sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument # mv /bin/sleep /bin/sleep.back # ls -l /bin/sleep.back -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35000 Jan 18 2018 /bin/sleep.back # touch /bin/sleep # chmod +x /bin/sleep # sleep 1 #
[...] Restarting services possibly affected by the upgrade: cron: stopping...sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument dpkg: error processing package libpam0g:amd64 (--configure): installed libpam0g:amd64 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) # ls -l /bin/sleep -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 39256 Sep 5 2019 /bin/sleep # mv /bin/sleep /bin/sleep.back2 # touch /bin/sleep # chmod +x /bin/sleep #
sleep
executable, if you had to move it# ls -l /bin/sleep* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Aug 23 23:57 /bin/sleep -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35000 Jan 18 2018 /bin/sleep.back -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 39256 Sep 5 2019 /bin/sleep.back2 # cp -p /bin/sleep.back2 /bin/sleep # ls -l /bin/sleep* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 39256 Sep 5 2019 /bin/sleep -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35000 Jan 18 2018 /bin/sleep.back -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 39256 Sep 5 2019 /bin/sleep.back2
.profile
, .bashrc
, …) from another Linux computer, or download some example files in your WSL home directory and use (and improve) them as suggested below (or as you wish)$ cd $ scp -pr <your_login>@ssh1.lsce.ipsl.fr:/home/users/jypeter/WSL_config .
.bashrc
file in your home directory when your WSL account is created. Add the following line at the end of ~/.bashrc
to use what is defined in the downloaded WSL_config
directory:source ~/WSL_config/bashrc_extra.sh
.emacs
configuration file, or get an example configuration file the following way:$ cd $ ln -s WSL_config/emacs .emacs
.ssh
directory of your Linux account, or just get the private key files:$ cd $ scp -pr <your_login>@ssh1.lsce.ipsl.fr:.ssh .
This assumes that you have already created a private/public ssh key pair and that the private key is available somewhere in the Windows 10 computer
dsa ssh keys are disabled by default (becoming obsolete). ssh
will ask for your password even if you have a ~/.ssh/id_dsa
file. ssh -v
will print Skipping ssh-dss key /home/<your_login>/.ssh/id_dsa - not in PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes
. The solution is to generate a new couple of public/private keys not based on dsa encryption, or to use the user ssh config
file to authorize dsa (source)
PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes +ssh-dss
to ~/.ssh/config
(before the HOST
sections)chmod 600 config
This assumes that you have installed the full Putty package (with the msi installer), converted your private ssh key with PuTTYgen
, and unlocked the converted ssh private key in Pageant.
The converted ssh private key is located in a Windows 10 folder
C:\Utils\weasel-pageant-x.x
~/.bashrc
file:eval $(/mnt/c/Utils/weasel-pageant-x.x/weasel-pageant -rb -a $HOME/.weasel-pageant.sock)
~/WSL_config/bashrc_extra.sh
if you have downloaded and adapted itssh-add -l
: it will display either The agent has no identities
, or as many lines as you have entered keys in Pageantssh user@host
to connect to a computer where you have your public keyNote: the other similar solutions are ssh-agent-wsl (the key is stored in the Windows ssh-agent instead of Pageant) or wsl-ssh-pageant
The ssh key (and other ssh settings) are in the ~/.ssh
directory of your WSL+Ubuntu account
This is the most simple setting, but there will be one running ssh-agent per terminal, and the key will be stored independently for each terminal (which means that you will have to type ssh-add
and your pass-phrase for each terminal)
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
)ssh-add
in a terminal, you first need to type eval `ssh-agent -s`
in the (or eval $(ssh-agent)
)eval $(ssh-agent)
to the .bashrc
file!~/WSL_config/bashrc_extra.sh
if you have downloaded and adapted it
Maybe check OpenSSH-Server connection issues
Maybe it could be useful to do a ssh
from the Win10 part of the machine to the WSL part, and from outside the machine to the WSL part
It would probably already be enough to enable the ssh server on Win10 (the ssh 1709 release beta features are now officially in Win10)
apt-get install wslu
wslusc
in any Linux terminalwslusc -g emacs
By default, the local disks and the external USB disks available (and decrypted!) when WSL is started (i.e. when the first WSL terminal is opened) are automatically available (mounted) in /mnt
: the content of C:\
is available in /mnt/c
, etc… The list of available disks is refreshed when the Windows session is restarted (the user logs out and in, or Windows is rebooted) or when just WSL is restarted.
Extra local disks or network drives (what you can access by opening \\dfshost\dfs\
in the file explorer when you are on the LSCE network) can be either mounted on the fly with the mount
command, or automatically by configuring the /etc/fstab
file.
You will access the network drives with the access rights you have in the current Windows session (and you may have to access the drives in Windows before you can mount them in WSL)
Warning! In all cases, the owner, groups and permissions displayed may not be accurate (but the actual access rights will apply).
your_login
/your_login
or root
/root
. Example of a local file belonging to the current Windows jypeter user, and a system file$ ls -l /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/Desktop/File_on_Desktop.txt -rwxrwxrwx 1 jypeter jypeter 0 Jan 21 11:50 /mnt/c/Users/jypeter/Desktop/File_on_Desktop.txt $ ls -l /mnt/c/Windows/notepad.exe -r-xr-xr-x 3 jypeter jypeter 181248 Mar 19 2019 /mnt/c/Windows/notepad.exe
rwxrwxrwx
even if the actual rights are more restrictive. Example after mounting the LSCE /home/scratch01
disk# File access rights seen from WSL+Ubuntu $ ls -l /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2755154 Jan 13 15:10 /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip # Actual access rights (on the Linux server) >ls -l /home/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip -rw-r--r-- 1 jypeter lsce 2755154 Jan 13 15:10 /home/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip # You can't change the access rights from WSL+Ubuntu, but you can remove a file, or create a new one $ chmod 600 /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip chmod: changing permissions of '/mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip': Operation not permitted $ rm /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip $ ls -l /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip ls: cannot access '/mnt/scratch01/jypeter/Chrome_backup.zip': No such file or directory $ touch /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/new_file_from_wsl.txt jypeter@lsce5203:/mnt/scratch01/jypeter$ ls -l /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/new_file_from_wsl.txt -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jan 21 11:37 /mnt/scratch01/jypeter/new_file_from_wsl.txt # The new file has the correct (default) access rights on the Linux server >ls -l /home/scratch01/jypeter/new_file_from_wsl.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 jypeter lsce 0 Jan 21 11:37 /home/scratch01/jypeter/new_file_from_wsl.txt
Some access rights handling can be slightly improved by automatically enabling the metadata
mount option. This will allow you to use chmod
/chown
on local NTFS disks (disks directly connected to your computer, e.g. /mnt/c/Users/your_login
).
sudo -s
/etc/wsl.conf
with the following content:[automount] options = "metadata"
You need to restart WSL+ubuntu to activate the new content of /etc/wsl.conf
. See below an example of the mount -l
output:
C: on /mnt/c type drvfs (rw,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,case=off)
C: on /mnt/c type drvfs (rw,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,metadata,case=off)
Optional: more details about wsl.conf
in WSL launch settings, How to use wsl.conf and metadata and access rights management
You have to create a mount point in the existing /mnt
directory and then use the mount
command
# Must be root for most 'mount' related commands $ sudo -s # Create the mount point (once), e.g. for accessing /home/scratch01 on the local LSCE servers # This works when the Windows 10 computer is on the LSCE network $ mkdir /mnt/scratch01 # Mount the remote disk $ mount -t drvfs '\\dfshost\dfs\scratch01' /mnt/scratch01 # List the mounted disks $ mount -l [...] \\dfshost\dfs\scratch01 on /mnt/scratch01 type drvfs (rw,relatime,case=off) # Unmount the disk, or just shutdown Windows or WSL when you are finished $ umount /mnt/scratch01
If you connect a USB disk/stick and windows sees it as a new J:\
drive, you can also manually mount it
$ sudo -s # Create the mount point (once) $ mkdir /mnt/j # Mount the USB disk $ mount -t drvfs J: /mnt/j # Unmount the disk, or just shutdown Windows or WSL when you are finished $ umount /mnt/j
The disks defined in /etc/fstab
will be automatically mounted when you start WSL and if they are actually accessible from your Windows session (e.g. \\dfshost\dfs
can only be accessed from the LSCE network)
You need to add 1 line per mount point to /etc/fstab
, and create (once) the directories that will be used for mounting the disks
$ sudo -s # Create the mount points (once) # The example below is to access the LSCE /home/users and /home/scrath01 disks $ mkdir /mnt/users /mnt/scratch01 # Make a backup copy of /etc/fstab before modifying it (for safety reasons!) $ cp -p /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak # Add lines to /etc/fstab associating mount points and directories $ cat /etc/fstab LABEL=cloudimg-rootfs / ext4 defaults 0 0 \\dfshost\dfs\users /mnt/users drvfs defaults 0 0 \\dfshost\dfs\scratch01 /mnt/scratch01 drvfs defaults 0 0 # Try to mount all the disks in /etc/fstab $ mount -a # Check the result $ mount -l [...] \\dfshost\dfs\users on /mnt/users type drvfs (rw,relatime,case=off) \\dfshost\dfs\scratch01 on /mnt/scratch01 type drvfs (rw,relatime,case=off)
It seems this can be done with a combination of WinFsp and SSHFS-Win (see SSHFS remote directory mounting syntax for details
Useful mount
options:
mount -a
(must be root): mount everything specified in /etc/fstab
umont /mnt/scratch01
(must be root): unmount the disk accessible through /mnt/scratch01
mount -l
: list all the mounted disks and the mount options (useful when you are using the default mount options and want to know which options were actually applied)Useful links (used for writing this section):
It is not possible to stop or reboot WSL like a regular Linux computer
shutdown -r now
will generate an error messageShutting down or rebooting the Windows computer will of course stop WSL but it's useful to be able to just stop/restart WSL in order to:
/mnt/<new_drive_letter
WSL can be stopped the following way. Warning: all the open terminals and running processes will be terminated!
cmd
, PowerShell
, … no need to run as administrator):wsl --list --verbose
wsl --terminate Ubuntu
wsl --shutdown
There are several types of WSL related directories that you may want to back up:
/home/<your_login>
), or some specific sub-directories of the Ubuntu running in WSL (sub-directories of /
): all these files are located in a hidden sub-directory of you Windows directory, and the best way to save them is probably to create a tar file from Linux, and put this tar file in a specific Windows WSL backup folder (we will use below the directory /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login>
or c:\Scratch\<your_login>
)$ cd /home $ du -sh $USER 232K <your_login> # We assume below that there is an existing /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login>/ directory # It's a WINDOWS directory C:\Scratch\<your_login> $ tar cfz /mnt/c/Scratch/$USER/${USER}_home_`date +%y%m%d_%H%M`.tgz $USER # Check the size of the new (and existing old) backup(s) $ ls -ltr /mnt/c/Scratch/$USER/${USER}_*.tgz 81K Jan 21 2020 /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login>/<your_login>_home_200121.tgz 93K Aug 22 2020 /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login>/<your_login>_home_200822_1151.tgz 95K Feb 24 12:09 /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login>/<your_login>_home_210224_1209.tgz
tar
in a Linux terminal, as above, or use any usual way of backing up Windows files (drag and drop, some specific backup software)wsl
commands shown below> wsl --list --all Distributions du sous-système Windows pour Linux : Ubuntu (par défaut) > wsl --list --verbose NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Running 1
> wsl --list --verbose NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Running 1 > wsl --shutdown > wsl --list --verbose NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Stopped 1
> wsl --export Ubuntu C:\Scratch\<your_login>\<your_login>_ubuntu-<ubuntu_version>-full_<some_date>.tar
$ cd /mnt/c/Scratch/<your_login> $ ls -ltrh *ubuntu*tar* 976M Jan 21 2020 <your_login>_200121.tar.gz 2.8G Aug 22 2020 <your_login>-16.04-full_200822.tar 3.4G Feb 24 14:06 <your_login>-20-04-1-full_210224.tar # Determine the number of files/directories in the backup $ tar tvf <your_login>-20-04-1-full_210224.tar | wc -l 112711 $ gzip *ubuntu*.tar $ ls -ltrh *ubuntu*tar* 976M Jan 21 2020 <your_login>_200121.tar.gz 1.2G Aug 22 2020 <your_login>-16.04-full_200822.tar.gz 1.8G Feb 24 14:06 <your_login>-20-04-1-full_210224.tar.gz
Read How to Export and Import Your Linux Systems on Windows 10 and Export and Import WSL Linux Distro in Windows 10 and similar threads
Check if WSL Manager is maintained and can be useful
This assumes that you have followed the steps above to create a full backup of your Linux distribution in a ubuntu_<your_login>_<some_date>.tar
file. This file can theoretically be restored with:
wsl --import <DistributionName> <InstallLocation> ubuntu_<your_login>_<some_date>.tar
--import
<DistributionName>
(e.g. Ubuntu
) as the one we are trying to restore without first removing it with unregister
(Unregister and reinstall a distribution)?<InstallLocation>
to install anywhere! What should we do if we want to restore to the default location (in the hidden directory)?C:\
?root
password is activatedNot too sure about this part…
/mnt
directories$ systemd-detect-virt wsl
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