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Basic documentation for fixing/tweaking WSL2 for my dev use. Some of this is useful, some of it might be just anecdotal. It's mostly a log of what I did so that if/when I have to reset/refresh windows and/or start on a new laptop, I can get up-and-running faster.

Networking

DNS

Lots of problems with name resolution and networking in general.

Symptom: /etc/resolv.conf includes the correct IP address of the host, yet pings do not get through and names are not resolved.

Fix:

  • disable auto-generation of resolv.conf by adding this to the in-WSL /etc/wsl.conf:

    [network]
generateResolvConf = false

  • rm /etc/resolv.conf (because it's a symlink to /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf)

  • add nameserver realnameserver where "realnameserver" is the ip address of your actual local DNS name server (I used my local network router, a caching name server)

localhost

Other complaints about networking involve the misconception that localhost on the linux machine is the same as localhost in windows, disregarding the whole host/guest-vm relationship. These are just misunderstandings. While my first reaction is "localhost is unique for each", but apparently linux ports are accessible in windows as localhost but not vice versa. I have no idea.

For the reverse, you'll likely need the windows IP address to get to it from linux.

I'd like to automatically add the host IP address to /etc/hosts; currently docker is adding its own stuff there, perhaps I need to find or write a script that auto-fills (perhaps based on ip route ls or similar?).

SSH-agent Forwarding

Long-debated. I prefer using KeePass and KeeAgent (github) instead of windows' openssh key-management, so many of the links proved troublesome and/or just unrelatable.

Long-story-short:

  • in Windows, I have KeePass/KeeAgent configured with its cygwin-compatible socket file (vice its msysGit-compatible), and the SSH_AUTH_SOCK envvar is set in the windows Environment Variables thing;

  • in linux, install socat; in debian-like, this is apt install socat;

  • get npiperelay.exe; the "proper" way to go if you have go available on your windows machine is to go to https://github.com/jstarks/npiperelay and install it that way; an alternative is to download the wsp-ssh-agent package from https://github.com/rupor-github/wsl-ssh-agent/releases and extract the pre-compiled npiperelay.exe from its release and discard the rest (I'm currently looking at v1.4.2, commit dd85633, there might be differences later); save this .exe file somewhere on the windows side (does not need to be in the PATH, just somewhere accessible from the linux side);

  • you can go as quick as using dlech/KeeAgent#159 (comment):

    export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$HOME/.ssh/agent.sock
ss -a | grep -q $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
if [ $? -ne 0   ]; then
    rm -f $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
    ( setsid socat UNIX-LISTEN:$SSH_AUTH_SOCK,fork EXEC:"/mnt/c/Tmp/npiperelay.exe -ei -s //./pipe/openssh-ssh-agent",nofork & ) >/dev/null 2>&1
fi

    (changing the location of npiperelay.exe) though I don't understand why the need for setsid, and there is no PID tracking here. I've drafted a hackish script to do ever-so-slightly more, found in ./assets/wsl-ssh-agent-forwarder.

(I should note that I don't know how the //./pipe/openssh-ssh-agent is used. For instance, my windows-side $SSH_AUTH_SOCK is pointing to a non-standard socket name ... if there is a standard ... and even though I never define it, things work nonetheless. However, if I change from that to any other string, it stops working, so ... keep it.)

X-windows Forwarding

Still WIP. My biggest issue is that I feel the need for something screen-like (or tmux-like) with X windows, so that when (not if) the network between windows and WSL2 glitches, I can reconnect and continue using the windows. I'm told Xpra is a good fit for this.

But for starters:

  • windows: download/install xpra client;
  • linux: debian-like: apt install xpra
  • in linux, start : xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:10000 :10000 (you can optionally put this in the background by appending &, it works well that way); N.B., I started it in linux and then Ctrl-Cd it, but it was still running; if you want to keep it foreground in a terminal, killing it is more than just an interrupt
  • in windows, start Xpra, then "Connect", then username@localhost:10000
  • in linux, set a display an start something, e.g., DISPLAY=:10000 emacs &

More testing is required to see how "robust" this is. I've heard that some WSL2 installations suspend or stop the WSL2 VM when not in use; since I use docker with the WSL2 extension, I believe that is keeping WSL2 active at all times even when no terminals are open. YMMV.