Hack to enable WSL

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enables us to run Linux on a Windows 10 device. Even when developer mode and the windows store are disabled, you can run this when you can start PowerShell as an admin.

Ubuntu/Debian/Kali via WSL

If we have at least windows 10 1803 (see below), we can install WSL using the following steps:

• Download your distro (e.g. Ubuntu) as appx here
• Open PowerShell as Administrator
  • cd C:\Users\YOUR-USERNAME\Downloads
  • Add-AppxPackage .\*.Appx
  • Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  • Y to reboot

You are now ready to use WSL Linux.

Container building

Docker won’t work for now (we’ll have to wait for WSL2), and don’t try img, it won’t work either.

Warnings

If we cross mount a volume between Windows and WSL, file permissions will be changed.

If your Windows system has file backup enabled, you want to backup to a path that is cross mounted between the WSL and the host. Files that once have been stored on that path cannot be used anymore (e.g. git commit). This also means that you cannot use your host tools (e.g. IDE) and should use CLI tools (e.g. tmux, vim).

For my setup, I tried setting up a cron job/systemd timer inside the WSL to make a copy to the network drive mounted from the host system, to backup my data, which did not work. So here is just a script which can be triggered manually:

cat << 'EOF' > /usr/local/bin/backup2host
#!/bin/sh

PATH2HOST=/mnt/c/Users

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo Please specify to which Windows User you want to backup
  for userpath in `ls -d $PATH2HOST/* 2>/dev/null`; do
    if `stat $userpath 2>/dev/null|grep -i access|grep -q 777`; then
      echo $userpath|sed 's/.*\///g'
    fi
  done
  exit 0
fi

tar cfz "$PATH2HOST/$1/wsl-home-backup-`date --iso`.tgz" /home
EOF
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/backup2host

Updating Windows

My system came with version 1709, which we check with winver inside of PowerShell. If we upgrade to 1903 we have OpenSSH client installed by default (from 1803). If the update manager will not allow you to upgrade, you can upgrade via the website.

You can now use it by opening a shell and typing ssh or scp.