Make IP address of WSL2 static

I am running an SSH server within WSL2 on a WIN10 machine. To make that work I am using:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 listenport=22 connectaddress=172.19.237.178 connectport=22

This works fine initially. 172.19.237.178 is the IP of the WSL2 VM.

There is just one problem. I have the sshd set to run when the PC boots, and every time I boot the machine WSL2 has a different IP. Is there any way to configure WSL2 to use a static IP?

Edit: See this question for a workaround to determine the WSL machine's IP.

2

6 Answers

The IP address of a WSL2 machine cannot be made static, however it can be determined using wsl hostname -I

Based on this I was able to create the following powershell script that will start sshd on my WSL machine and route traffic to it.

wsl.exe sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start
$wsl_ip = (wsl hostname -I).trim()
Write-Host "WSL Machine IP: ""$wsl_ip"""
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=22 connectport=22 connectaddress=$wsl_ip

I added the following to my sudoers file via visudo to avoid needing a password to start sshd

%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /etc/init.d/ssh

Finally, from an administrative powershell terminal, I scheduled my script to run at startup

$trigger = New-JobTrigger -AtStartup -RandomDelay 00:00:15
Register-ScheduledJob -Trigger $trigger -FilePath C:\route_ssh_to_wsl.ps1 -Name RouteSSHtoWSL

4

No need to use scripts to get the ip, just use Openssh server for windows and change the default shell from c:/system32/cmd.exe to c:/system32/bash.exe:

2

Using wsl and wsl2 at the same time caused problems for me. Could not get correct wsl hostname from the powershell command:

wsl hostname -I

Building on the answer from Nick, I needed to forward web 80 and 443, along with some other app ports.

ubuntu2004.exe -c "sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start"
$wsl_ip = (ubuntu2004.exe -c "ifconfig eth0 | grep 'inet '").trim().split()| where {$_}
$regex = [regex] "\b(?:(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.){3}(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\b"
$ip_array = $regex.Matches($wsl_ip) | %{ $_.value }
$wsl_ip = $ip_array[0]
Write-Host "WSL Machine IP: ""$wsl_ip"""
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=443 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=443 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=8080 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=8080 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=80 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=3001 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=3001 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=2222 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=2222 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=22 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=22 connectaddress=$wsl_ip

1

My simple head, I run this script manually(run as administrator) everytime I need to proxy a port to WSL.

proxyport.bat

wsl hostname -I
@echo off
set /p WSLIP=What is the current WSL IP address?
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 listenport=2222 connectaddress=%WSLIP% connectport=2222

Then one more step in the WSL terminal:

sudo service ssh start

Hope it helps someone like me. :)

2

This solution helped me to set up a static ip of my wsl, try:

Run this on your windows host machine:

netsh interface ip add address "vEthernet (WSL)" 192.168.99.1 255.255.255.0

And this on your wsl linux machine:

sudo ip addr add 192.168.99.2/24 broadcast 192.168.99.255 dev eth0 label eth0:1;

But to keep this IP after the rebooting your sytem you need to set up those commands in the startup scrip.

Here's a very compact solution for WSL2 that will auto-start the SSH server. It eliminates having to deal with Powershell signing/execution policies and having to run it on a schedule.

1. Run wsl sudo nano /etc/wsl.conf and add these lines:

   [boot]
   command="service ssh start"

   This will auto-start SSH server on every WSL startup.

2. (Optional) If you'd like to use a custom port (like 2022) for SSH (for example, if you use multiple WSL distros), run:

   wsl sudo sed -i 's|.*Port.*|Port 2022|' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

This works because WSL2 maps ports from its distros to the Windows' localhost. Now you can just connect to your host using localhost:22 (or a custom port).

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