Microsoft Releases A Big Update To Windows Subsystem For Linux, New Experimental Options

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Releases A Big Update To Windows Subsystem For Linux, New Experimental Options

Microsoft has published a big feature update to Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" for running Linux binaries within the confines of Windows 11...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/WSL-Big-September-Update

[justinkb]

I checked literally 3 hours ago to see if they updated their kernel and stuff lately. Missed this by one hour, wouldn't have checked again for weeks if it weren't for this article, cheers for that. Weird they still haven't moved the kernel to 6.1 yet when they've already tagged a release for that months ago. I've run that for a while without any problems, not sure why they haven't gone with it

[sophisticles]

I wonder how long before Microsoft releases a full, proper distro.

I also wonder if they did, how long it would be before the Linux faithful would complain that it sucks.

[RAINFIRE]

Last I checked OpenSSH wasn't fixed if installed by any method including Features in Win 10, 11, Server or WSL. The SSH Agent was broken effectively disabling passwordless SSH login by public/private key which is huge on the linux side. Broken unless they they fixed the OS part. Last I checked months ago, you still had to download and replace with Github version. In my humble opinion, WSL is a toy linux. Here's the fixed version:

https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases

[V1tol]

Last I checked OpenSSH wasn't fixed if installed by any method including Features in Win 10, 11, Server or WSL. The SSH Agent was broken effectively disabling passwordless SSH login by public/private key which is huge on the linux side. Broken unless they they fixed the OS part. Last I checked months ago, you still had to download and replace with Github version. You have to uninstall the OS version and replace with Github version. In my humble opinion, WSL is a toy linux. Here's the fixed version:

https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases

I don't understand your use case here. SSH into running WSL instance? Why when you can do it directly via terminal. SSH into some remote server? That's more like it but since when we are talking about WSL you could do that from WSL with it's not-broken client. That means broken ssh.exe has nothing to do with WSL at all.

[RAINFIRE]

I don't understand your use case here. SSH into running WSL instance? Why when you can do it directly via terminal. SSH into some remote server? That's more like it but since when we are talking about WSL you could do that from WSL with it's not-broken client. That means broken ssh.exe has nothing to do with WSL at all.

You don't understand having working public/private keys in SSH, even if it is a sub-system? It means WSL is not usable past the host system without typing passwords everywhere. This makes WSL non-usable on any serious system that has to talk to other computers.

[rhavenn]

You don't understand having working public/private keys in SSH, even if it is a sub-system? It means WSL is not usable past the host system without typing passwords everywhere. This makes WSL non-usable on any serious system that has to talk to other computers.

You've just described a VM running on top of Hyper-V. WSL isn't meant for running a "full" VM with networking, etc... if you need that then just enable Hyper-V, install a VM and there ya go. Considering WSL2 basically installs HyperV for you anyway and is running more or less as a VM then the next logical step is just go full hypervisor.

and you can talk out just fine. The VM is just not getting it's own IP or a listening port for inbound connections, but you can certainly setup a SSH key (create one or import one) and SSH out to anything you like using keys.

[damonlynch]

You don't understand having working public/private keys in SSH, even if it is a sub-system? It means WSL is not usable past the host system without typing passwords everywhere. This makes WSL non-usable on any serious system that has to talk to other computers.

You are unable to use passwordless SSH on Linux in WSL? That's very odd. I use it to log into a remote server, as well as for GitHub. Works just like on bare metal Linux.

[Markopolo]

Great update. I’m most looking forward to the auto memory reclaim feature. It’s not often I have to restart wsl but when I do it’s normally a few minutes into a weird build issue where one instance took too much ram, and the other instances compiles suddenly fail in fun and unique ways I’ve never seen before… (normally windows security updates force a full restart first)

[rhavenn]

Last I checked OpenSSH wasn't fixed if installed by any method including Features in Win 10, 11, Server or WSL. The SSH Agent was broken effectively disabling passwordless SSH login by public/private key which is huge on the linux side. Broken unless they they fixed the OS part. Last I checked months ago, you still had to download and replace with Github version. In my humble opinion, WSL is a toy linux. Here's the fixed version:

https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases

and that has nothing to do with WSL or WSL2. WSL runs a psuedo Linux VM in a process or hypervisor layer. WSL2 is functionally a HyperV VM that just doesn't have a full network stack. You're talking about the OpenSSH server that you can install as a Windows service and then you can SSH in to a PowerShell prompt at the Windows layer. Totally different beast. Yeah, I had issues awhile back to logging in with an SSH key, but I did fix it, but I don't remember how. then I went..hugh, neat and promptly blew that test box away.

Honestly, while kinda cool, PS Remoting and the ability to run PowerShell at remote systems and/or run through WSMAN is way more than enough to manage Windows systems. The SSH layer is just a cool "toy" or if you're 99% a Linux shop, but they should fix that SSH key problem.