WSL-scripts

A collection of Windows and Linux Script files and snippets to make the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) easier to use and more capable.

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Before using anything in this repository, make sure to at least read the relevant chapter in this readme first!

What can these do?

• make cmd and its integrated tools more usable, including parsing %WindowsVariables%
• add shutdown and reboot commands that can be used from inside WSL
• mount additional Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) in WSL (automatically if you want)
• includes necessary Linux-side configuration for using GUI applications
• And a bunch more. Additional tools will be added here in the future.

CMD improvements

cmd.exe is an ancient tool with many problems. Still it often provides simple solutions that are not otherwise easily available. For example, cmd is able to start additional windows, such as terminals, easily, and perhaps most importantly, it is able to access Windows environment variables using the %variable% syntax. This is a prerequisite for certain other tasks one may want to do in a WSL system.

To add the improvements, open your ~/.bashrc file in a text editor and add the lines from bashrc-cmd.sh that define the following commands:

Line	Description
alias cmd	makes it possible to call cmd without the .exe extension in WSL. Optional.
alias ccmd	Executes whatever comes next as a cmd command. Example: ccmd start cmd & --> opens a separate cmd window. Caveats: this will change directory to C:\Windows during execution because cmd does not support UNC-Paths such as those used by WSL. some characters may need to be escaped using \, such as >
echo%	Outputs a string as parsed by cmd. Useful for debugging or passing it to other commands. Does not output a newline. Example: echo% %appdata% --> E:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming
path%	Outputs a Linux-formatted path parsed from echo%. Does not output a newline. Example: path% %appdata% --> /mnt/e/Users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming
cd%	changes directory to a path as parsed by path%. Example: cd% %appdata%

More optional Additions that depend on the above:

Line	Description
export WinHOME	makes the current Windows user's home directory available as an environment variable in Linux.
alias home	changes directory to the Windows user's home directory.

Shutdown and Reboot commands

For more details about this, also see this Stackoverflow post

By default there is no way to shutdown or reboot a WSL machine from within itself with a simple command. The existing commands called shutdown and reboot are not usable.

Shutting down is relatively straightforward, however one has to decide whether to shutdown only the current WSL distribution, or ALL systems running on WSL including the Backend. This is necessary for example when updating the Linux Kernel.

Rebooting is more complex, and so far I am not aware of a way to do this while preserving the existing terminal window.
Therefore there are more Variants of it available. You must choose which variant you want to use. DO NOT add multiple definitions of the same command!

To add working commands for shutdown and reboot, open your ~/.bashrc file in a text editor and add those lines you want to use from bashrc-shutdownReboot.sh. You can also add all lines and comment out using # those lines you do not want to use.

Line	Description
alias shutdown	shuts down the current distribution only.
alias shutdown-all	shuts ALL distributions AND the WSL engine.
alias reboot	Variant 1: reboot the current WSL distribution, launch a new Window of it that starts out at C:\ Variant 2: reboot the current WSL distribution, but close the new session's terminal. The Distro will be ready to work when you open a new terminal.
alias reboot	Variant 3: reboot the CURRENT WSL distribution, SHUT DOWN all other Distributions AND the WSL engine, launch a new Window that starts out at C:\ Variant 4: reboot the CURRENT WSL distribution, but close the new session's terminal, SHUT DOWN all other Distributions AND the WSL engine.

Mount VHD files in WSL

Note: This Feature is new and only available in the latest versions of WSL. So far WSL versions have been tied to your installed Build of Windows. You can check your Windows Build by running Winver. For Windows versions prior to build 20211, it is not possible to mount Virtual Hard Drives. For versions from build 20211 to below 22000, you can only use the method found in the legacy folder. This section will describe the newest and simplest method of mounting VHDs. If you obtained WSL from the Windows Store, which is currently in preview, you should also be able to use this new method.

WSL systems are stored as single VHDX virtual disk images. However sometimes it is preferrable to split a VM's storage into several files, for example to make use of fast SSDs and large HDDs. This can be accomplished using the new WSL --mount --vhd option.

How to add a VHD to WSL

Creating a new VHD file:

1. On Windows, open Diskmgmt.msc (Disk Management)
2. Go to Actions -> Create VHD
3. Enter a location, size, and type and click OK.
   (Note: if you specify the size as a non-integer number, you must use "," or "." according to your Windows Culture. 'Incorrect' characters will be ignored. For english, use ".")
4. It should show up in Disk Manager. Do NOT initialize or partition the VHD in Windows.

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Mounting the VHD

When first mounting a VHD, wsl may throw a code 22 at you if the VHD is not formatted in ext4 yet. This is fine. See the section below.

You can mount VHDs manually and temporarily. In any terminal, run:

wsl.exe --mount --vhd "C:\path\to\VHD File.vhdx"

Or you can add a few lines to your .bashrc file to automate mounting and make it permanent. The file bashrc-mountVHD.sh contains a convenient way to do this. Simply add those lines to your .bashrc file and change the Name in [Brackets] and the Windows Path of the VHD file.

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Formatting the VHD

1. open up WSL and run lsblk or df -h
2. If you've mounted the VHD, you should see a new block device, for example /dev/sdc that wasn't there before.
   If you are not sure, df -h has more information that should make it easier to tell.
   You can also unmount the VHD again: wsl --unmount to unmount all added VHDs or Physical Drives.
3. Now you can format the VHD in linux, for example using mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc, then mount it again and start using it.

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You can add or remove VHDs at any time later. Simply edit the ~/.bashrc file as before and reboot WSL or run source ~/.bashrc. However note that the scripts do not unmount anything, you may need to do that manually.

Linux-side configuration for using GUI applications

This section is not a tutorial. It only includes the necessary additions to the ~/.bashrc file.

• Open your ~/.bashrcfile in a text editor and add the contents of bashrc-GUI.sh
  
  

Independent .bashrc additions

The lines from bashrc-misc.sh can be added optionally to your ~/.bashrc file with a text editor. Each line is independent of the rest.

Line	Description
alias explorer	opens Windows Explorer in the current directory.
alias lsa	A typical alias for the ls command. Everyone has their favorite format of ls, right?
alias reload-bashrc	command to reload the .bashrc file from any directory
alias gedit	runs gedit as separate process and ignores any console output (such as warnings)
gitex()	runs the 3rd party Git GUI 'GitExtensions' on the windows side. Note: this is a function. It is intended more as an example addition.

Contributions

If you have created other general-purpose scripts or tools specific to WSL that you think would fit into this collection, feel free to start a pull request.
Any other improvements are of course also welcome as long as they work.