win11-wsl2-ubuntu-base-pmb

win11-wsl2-ubuntu-base-pmb ==========================

Make Ubuntu work for me in Windows 11 WSL2.

Definitions

• WSL: Windows Subsystem for Linux
• WUB: Acronym for this project, made from the initials of its relevant words: WSL, Ubuntu, Base.

Usage

• wub.cmd: Open PowerShell in the WUB directory.
• wub.cmd .: Open the WUB directory in Windows Explorer.

Port forwarding for the Ubuntu OpenSSH server

WSL tends to randomize its IP address whenever it starts. To alleviate this, WUB by default installs a crude ncat-based proxy from TCP port 513 (rlogin) to localhost:22.

Fortunately, WSL seems to do something to make the latter work on the Windows side. I guess Microsoft arranged that because anyone connecting from Windows to localhost:22 usually doesn’t mean to connect to the Windows OpenSSH service.

Thus, if you allow ncat.exe to only listen on trusted local home networks, you should have reasonably secure, easy access from your LAN with:

ssh -p 513 wubu-pmb@yourmachine.local

Installation

• If you use the OpenSSH Windows service, reconfigure it to use some port other than 22 and restart it.
  • Or you can (later) reconfigure the OpenSSHd inside your WSL and adjust the port forwarding as needed.
• If you want a specific version of any of these programs, install them before WUB, otherwise WUB may try to install them at whatever version is easiest to get. Detection is done by whether WUB can run the expected .exe files.
  • choco.exe = Chocolatey
  • node.exe = Node.js
  • perl.exe = Perl
  • pythonw3.exe = Python 3
• Plan ahead for restarting Windows soon, as that will be required later, after WUB claims it is successfully installed.
• Ensure your computer name is sane, and entirely lowercase.
  • If Windows won’t allow you to change just letter case, you may have to (optionally: complain to Microsoft,) set a temporary dummy hostname, reboot, change it to your original hostname in lowercase, and reboot again.
• Install ncat if you haven’t already: Make sure you have ncat.exe in your PATH. The download link for the statically compiled version of ncat.exe is hidden near the botton: “[…] inside a zip file here.”
  • I actually made a downloader in the install script, and even managed to trick Windows Defender to leave the ZIP file alone, but it would still confiscate the unpacked exe file, so you’ll have to deal with it manually.
• Check netsh.exe interface portproxy show all for any forwardings for which you don’t have a good reason to keep them. For help on how to delete them: netsh.exe interface portproxy delete (shows available subcommands)
• Install the latest Ubuntu LTS from the Windows Store.
  • ⚠ When the app is installed, it usually starts immediately, but minimized.
  • If you open the app, and instead of seeing the first time login wizard, you are instantly logged in as root, it’s likely because the that first time login wizard is already running in another Ubuntu window, potentially the minimized auto-started one.
  • Recommended initial username: wubu-pmb (The second “u” is for user.)
  • Recommended initial password (will be disabled later): wubu
• Create a directory for this repo somewhere on a windows disk where each path component consists of only letters (A-Z, a-z), digits (0-9), U+002D hyphen-minus (-), U+002E full stop (.), and/or U+005F low line (_).
  • We’ll call this your WUB directory.

  • Recommended path: C:\ProgramData\wsl\win11-wsl2-ubuntu-base-pmb

• In your WUB directory, make a directory named cfg.@.defaults and maybe put some files there:
  • ssh_authorized_keys.txt: If you want to login via OpenSSH.
    • A potential UTF-8-BOM (Byte Order Mark) in the first line is acceptable.
    • U+000D carriage return (cr) at the end of lines are acceptable.
• Download reinstall_repo.cmd into your WUB directory, open its file properties, confirm the trust checkbox (web download noob protection) in the bottom, click “OK”, and run it.
  • If you want to install from a specific branch, you can give that as a named parameter, e.g.: reinstall_repo.cmd BRANCH=experimental
• It should install lots of stuff and then say “Post-install configuration completed successfully.”
• Type any key (e.g. space bar) to quit.

• Restart Windows.

Known issues

• Needs more/better tests and docs.
• ERR_OUTDATED_WSL_PATH: The installer was able to install missing packages, but it cannot see them because the WSL session still uses the old PATH environment variable. The solution is to retry with a new environment inherited directly from the windows task bar: If a shell is still open from which you launched the current (failed) attempt, close it. Press Win+R to open the “Run” dialog, type wub and confirm to open the WUB shell. There, run reinstall_repo.cmd. If that didn’t help, reboot and retry.

 

License

ISC