Top Windows Subsystem for Linux Tweaks

Windows Subsystem for Linux is a tool that provides the “best of both worlds” for Ops and DevOps engineers. It allows having access to Linux on a Windows machine. So, engineers can access both Windows and Linux applications and tools at the same time. However, there are many great tweaks and tips to note with WSL. Let’s look at Windows Subsystem for Linux top tips and see how we can best use WSL.

What is Windows Subsystem for Linux?

Windows Subsystem for Linux is often referred to as WSL. It is a light weight virtualization environment that allows you to run Linux binaries natively in Windows 10 and 11 platforms. Instead of having to dual-boot a workstation or run a full Linux virtual machine to have access to Linux, you can have both on the same Windows installation.

Microsoft has also greatly streamlined the installation of WSL as it has now integrated WSL directly into the Microsoft Store. You can now easily get WSL installed in Windows without having to jump through hoops and install one-off packages as you had to do a few years back.

Also, you can download different Linux distributions directly from the Microsoft Store, such as Ubuntu Server, etc.

Searching WSL on the Microsoft Store showing many options for WSL

Learn more about WSL from the official Microsoft Learn pages here: What is Windows Subsystem for Linux | Microsoft Learn.

Windows Subsystem for Linux tweaks

Let’s look at the following tweaks:

1. Suppress the sudo password prompt
2. Enable systemd in WSL
3. Install Ansible
4. Persistent Aliases
5. Install PowerShell
6. Add VMware PowerCLI module
7. Copying files between WSL and Windows
8. Installing Kubernetes (Minikube and Microk8s)

1. Suppress the sudo password prompt

Let’s look at suppressing the sudo password prompt. This makes it easier to work with a sudo user so you aren’t nagged with entering your password with everything you try to do. To modify the password for a sudo user, type the command:

sudo visudo

This will launch the file that we need to modify. At the bottom of your file, enter the following. Note, I will be showing the command with linuxadmin but replace this with the user you want to disable the password requirement for:

linuxadmin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Now, just save and close the file to make the changes effective.

2. Enable systemd in WSL

Systemd is needed for some applications and processes, such as running Microk8s in WSL. It used to be fairly difficult to get working in WSL. However, it is now much easier than before.

To enable systemd in WSL, we need to edit the following file:

sudo nano /etc/wsl.conf

There will likely be nothing in this file unless you have modified it already. However, we need to add the following config to the file:

[boot]

systemd=true

That’s it. Now we need to shutdown WSL so that it can be booted back up with systemd enabled. First we need to find the WSL instance to shutdown. To list the instances, run the following command:

wsl --list --running

Once you have found the running instance of WSL you want to shutdown, run the command below replacing the instance with your particular instance:

wsl --shutdown Ubuntu-24.04

Launch your WSL instance once again and we will verify systemd is installed. You can do that with the command:

systemctl list-unit-files --type=service

If you get output, you have successfully initialized systemd.

3. Install Ansible

Ansible is a great configuration management tool that can easy be installed into WSL to manage your environments with Ansible. To install Ansible, you can run the following commands that not only install Ansible but also install other requirements as well as the libkrb5-devand krb5-userpackages that allow you to work with Active Directory joined Kerberos hosts.

sudo apt-get install -y gcc python3-dev libkrb5-dev && \

sudo apt-get install python3-pip -y && \

sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip && \

sudo pip3 install --upgrade virtualenv && \

sudo apt install krb5-user -y && \

sudo pip3 install pywinrm && \

sudo apt install ansible -y

Now, we can check the Ansible version after installation:

4. Persistent Aliases

Next, is persistent aliases. These just make life much easier, especially if you are constantly working with long file paths, etc. We can create short commands that refer to longer commands.

To create a persistent alias, we need to create a special file located in your linux user’s home directory. First let’s create the file:

cd ~

touch .bash_aliases

Now we can edit the file:

nano .bash_aliases

To actually create an alias, you do the following syntax. Below, I am creating an alias for my OneDrive directory path that is 9 miles long so that instead of typine the long directory path, I can instead type the short alias command to get there.

alias ansibledir="cd /mnt/c/Users/Administrator/OneDrive/Documents/ansible/cloudlocal"

To make the new bash alias, we need to save the file and then close your WSL terminal environment. Once you have closed, just relaunch the WSL terminal. Once we launch the WSL environment again, we can run the command defined by the alias and we see it automatically changes to the OneDrive location (long folder path).

5. Install PowerShell

Now that PowerShell is a cross-platform tool, we can install it in our Windows Subsystem for Linux environment. We can do this using the PowerShell Core installation. Let’s see how we can install PowerShell in our WSL installation.

The command needed are the following looking at is the following:

sudo snap install powershell --classic

After it is installed, you can launch PowerShell using the cmd:

pwsh

6. Add VMware PowerCLI module

You can also install your VMware vSphere PowerCLI cmdlets. All we need to do is install the VMware PowerShell module. To install it, you can issue the cmdlet:

Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI

You will need to confirm the installation of the VMware PowerCLI module.

We can verify the VMware.PowerCLI module is installed by issuing some commands in the PowerShell instance in Windows Subsystem for Linux:

connect-viserver <your vcenter or ESXi hostname or IP>

7. Copying files between WSL and Windows

Did you know you can copy files easily between WSL and your Windows host? You can do this with the simple command when you are inside your Windows Subsystem for Linux bash shell. Using the command below, it will open the Windows explorer focused on the directory from which you run the command:

explorer.exe .

Windows Explorer window will launch where you will be able to browse your Windows Subsystem for Linux files and directories from Windows Explorer.

8. Installing Kubernetes

With systemd installed, we can install Microk8s. The process to install Microk8s is simple, you can use the following snap command:

sudo snap install microk8s --classic

If you want to see the status of the Microk8s installation, you can run the following command:

sudo microk8s status

Wrapping up

Hopefully these Windows Subsystem for Linux tips and hacks with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) are a few things you can implement in your WSL environment. As we have shown, WSL is not just a simple Linux command line environment. You can install many additional components, tools, and utilities to run things like system, Ansible, and even run a single-node Kubernetes cluster. As WSL continues to expand and mature, there will likely be other things we can do with the platform.