Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL)

Description:

Here is how to Enable Windows Subsystem For Linux. What this does is allow you to interact with Linux machines on the network natively.

To Resolve:

1. If you have W10 Creators update:

   • Open PowerShell as Administrator and run: Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
   • After installation your Linux distribution will be located at: %localappdata%\lxss\
   • If you don’t yet: Turn on Developer Mode by going to Settings => Update and Security => For developers. Then do it.

2. Open a command prompt. Type: bash

   • This will ask you something, just say yes. Then it will have you create a user and password.

3. First, change the root password: sudo passwd root

4. Now try creating a file in your Windows system from the linux system:

   cd /mnt/c/Users/%username%/Documents
   touch myfile.txt
   vi myfile.txt
   # (type whatever) then press ESC and then :wq! to save and exit the file
   

   • Check from Windows. It’s there!

5. Now you can do the standard updates: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

6. Start interacting with your servers using ssh and other linux tools! For more info, see here.