In this guide we are going to learn how to setup Linux with WSL-VPNkit on WSL2.

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Pre-requisites

• Windows 10 build 18917 or higher
• Powershell (with Administrator access)
• Linux sub-system for Windows (in this guide we will use Ubuntu 22.04 distro)

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Install WSL on your windows machines

Steps

Simply follow this guide to enable and setup WSL on your windows laptop:

• Disconnect from VPN (if connected)
• Reinstall WSL for Windows (if not already installed), Feature “Subsystem for Windows” should stay active. If you don’t have an admin account you can simply order it via ServiceNow: WSL2 - Windows Subsystem for Linux - Installation
• Open PowerShell as administrator

  • Define Version 2 as default for WSL (PowerShell). Details of this in here

    > wsl --set-default-version 2
    

  • Check and Install the distro you would like to install

    > wsl -l -o
    Nedenfor vises en liste over gyldige distribusjoner som kan installeres.
    Installer ved hjelp av wsl.exe --install <Distro>.    
    NAME                                   FRIENDLY NAME
    Ubuntu                                 Ubuntu
    Debian                                 Debian GNU/Linux
    kali-linux                             Kali Linux Rolling
    Ubuntu-18.04                           Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
    Ubuntu-20.04                           Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
    Ubuntu-22.04                           Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
    OracleLinux_7_9                        Oracle Linux 7.9
    OracleLinux_8_7                        Oracle Linux 8.7
    OracleLinux_9_1                        Oracle Linux 9.1
    openSUSE-Leap-15.5                     openSUSE Leap 15.5
    SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-Server-15-SP4    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4
    SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP5           SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP5
    openSUSE-Tumbleweed                    openSUSE Tumbleweed
    

  • Install the distro choice

    # in this example we will use Ubuntu-22.04 but you can choose any distro you prefer
    > wsl --install -d <distro_name>
    

  • Set username and password when the installation completes

    Note: Docker will not run on WSL version 1

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Setup WSL-VPNKIT to get access to internet on your Ubuntu machine

Steps

• Download the binaries on your PowerShell (on the host) (pick the latest version from here)

  > VERSION=v0.4.x
  > wget https://github.com/sakai135/wsl-vpnkit/releases/download/$VERSION/wsl-vpnkit.tar.gz
  

• Import the distribution

  > wsl --import wsl-vpnkit wsl-vpnkit wsl-vpnkit.tar.gz
  

• Run wsl-vpnkit. This will run wsl-vpnkit in the foreground in Linux (WSL)

  $ wsl.exe -d wsl-vpnkit --cd /app wsl-vpnkit
  

• or to run the wsl-vpnkit as the service, which can be tricky due to some bugs*, so make sure you are on 2.0.14 or later:

  > wsl --update
  Checking for updates.
  Updating Windows Subsystem for Linux to version: 2.0.14.
  The requested operation requires elevation.
  Checking for updates.
  Updating Windows Subsystem for Linux to version: 2.0.14.
  

• Create the .service file (run it on your distro)

  $ wsl.exe -d wsl-vpnkit --cd /app cat /app/wsl-vpnkit.service | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/wsl-vpnkit.service
  

• or simply copy and edit for wsl-vpnkit

  $ sudo cp ./wsl-vpnkit.service /etc/systemd/system/
  $ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/wsl-vpnkit.service
  

• it should look something like this:

• 

• finally enable the service so that wsl-vpnkit.service should start with your distro restart next time.

  $ sudo systemctl enable wsl-vpnkit
  

• start and check the status of the service

  $ sudo systemctl start wsl-vpnkit
  $ systemctl status wsl-vpnkit
  
  # this helps to see more than a few lines but the tail of the full service log
  $ journalctl -u  wsl-vpnkit.service -e
  

• Test the connectivity on your Linux distro:

  $ nslookup google.com
  Server:         1.1.1.1
  Address:        1.1.1.1#53
  
  Non-authoritative answer:
  Name:   google.com
  Address: 142.250.74.14
  Name:   google.com
  Address: 2a00:1450:400f:802::200e
  

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Voila! You are done.

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Troubleshooting vpnkit as a service

• It may become a bit tricky as you will probably would run into an error with this message:

  /home/username/folder/wsl-gvproxy.exe is not executable due to WSL interop settings or Windows permissions
  

  How do I request and free a WSL interop socket?

• Troubleshooting the WSL version

  > wsl --version
  WSL version: 2.0.5.0
  Kernel version: 5.15.133.1-1
  WSLg version: 1.0.59
  MSRDC version: 1.2.4485
  Direct3D version: 1.608.2-61064218
  DXCore version: 10.0.25880.1000-230602-1350.main
  Windows version: 10.0.19045.3930
  
  
  > wsl -d Ubuntu nslookup google.com
  ;; communications error to 172.26.32.1#53: timed out
  ;; communications error to 172.26.32.1#53: timed out
  ^C
  
  
  > wsl --update
  Checking for updates.
  Updating Windows Subsystem for Linux to version: 2.0.14.
  The requested operation requires elevation.
  Checking for updates.
  Updating Windows Subsystem for Linux to version: 2.0.14.
  
  > wsl -d Ubuntu nslookup google.com
  Server:         172.26.32.1
  Address:        172.26.32.1#53
  
  Non-authoritative answer:
  Name:   google.com
  Address: 142.250.74.110
  

Ref:

1. Install WSL 2 with VPN Support to replace Docker for Windows

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