xiaxichen / go-wsl2-host

Automatically update your Windows hosts file with the WSL2 VM IP address

go-wsl2-host

As of v0.2.0, I've dropped support for windows.local, if this was important let me know and I can add it back in.

Unable to enter your username? Having trouble starting the service? See issue #10

A workaround for accessing the WSL2 VM from the Windows host.

This program installs as a service and runs under the local user account. It automatically updates your Windows hosts file with the WSL2 VM's IP address.

The program uses the name of your distro, modified to be a hostname. For example "Ubuntu-18.04" becomes ubuntu1804.wsl. If you have more than one running distro, it will be added as well. When the distro stops it is removed from the host file.

I wrote this for my own use but thought it might be useful for others. It's not perfect but gets the job done for me.

To install and run, download a binary from the releases tab. Place it somewhere like your Documents/ folder.

Open an elevated/administrator command prompt:

> .\wsl2host.exe install
Windows Username: <username-you-use-to-login-to-windows>
Windows Password: <password-for-this-user>

The program will install a service and start it up. Launch wsl then from a cmd prompt, run ping ubuntu1804.wsl. You can check the Windows hosts file to see what was written. The service will automatically update the IP if the WSL2 VM is stopped and started again.

The Windows hosts file is located at: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

To remove / uninstall the service:

NOTE: Upgrading Windows Insider will remove the service, but not cleanly. To reinstall after upgrading, first make sure you've downloaded the latest version of wsl2host, then run remove before install

Open an elevated/administrator command prompt:

> .\wsl2host.exe remove

Specifying aliases

As of v0.3 you can no specify aliases that point to your WSL2 VM IP. Having some.client.local, may be useful in your development workflow.

To do this, create the file ~/.wsl2hosts in your default WSL2 distro. Host names are space separated:

some.client.local my-app.local wsl.local