WSL2 Guide¶
This page is a WIP, check back later for more contents
Add USB Drive to WSL¶
Microsoft has a doccumentation of how to connect USB devices to WSL (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb), but it's essentially just passthrough usb bus, we can't mount the usb device yet because the WSL Linux kernel doesn't support USB mass storage. So we have to rebuild WSL Linux kernel, let's get started
Rebuild the WSL Linux kernel¶
Go to WSL-Linux-Kernel github releases, download the latest source code (.tar.gz): https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel/releases
From inside a WSL instance, run:
# First, install build dependencies
sudo apt install build-essential flex bison dwarves libssl-dev libelf-dev
# Download source code
wget https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel/archive/refs/tags/linux-msft-wsl-5.15.153.1.tar.gz
tar -zxvf linux-msft-wsl-5.15.153.1.tar.gz
cd WSL2-Linux-Kernel-linux-msft-wsl-5.15.153.1
# Get current kernel config
sudo cp /proc/config.gz .
sudo gunzip config.gz
sudo mv config .config
# update config to add USB Mass Storage support
make menuconfig
# Go to Device Drivers -> USB support -> USB Mass Storage support. Press y to build as built-in [*]
make -j$(nproc)
# Copy the built kernel image to Windows, change the path (/mnt/c/...) wherever you want
cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /mnt/c/Users/Hao/.
Update .wslconfig to use our kernel image¶
In Windows, go to your home folder (C:\Users\Hao), create a file named .wslconfig if not exist
Edit the file, add these line
Note: other .wslconfig settings can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config#global-configuration-options-with-wslconfig
Now restart wsl, open powershell and run
Attach the USB drive to WSL¶
From here, you can follow the MS's documentation above (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb)
Basically run:
# install usbipd
winget install --interactive --exact dorssel.usbipd-win
# list usb
usbipd list
# You will see output like this, in this case, BUSID 2-3 is my connected usb
#Connected:
#BUSID VID:PID DEVICE STATE
#1-1 05ac:8233 NCM Composite Device Not shared
#1-3 05ac:8262 USB Input Device Not shared
#2-3 14cd:1212 USB Mass Storage Device Not shared
# Bind the bus first
usbipd bind --busid 2-3
# Attach to WSL
usbipd attach --wsl --busid 2-3
Now inside WSL instance, you can use it, some example commands
Once you are done using the device in WSL, you can detach it, run this command inside powershell