interop

Per-directory case sensitivity and WSL

February 28, 2018 Feb 28, 2018 02/28/18

Sven Groot

If you have used the Windows Subsystem for Linux, you’re probably aware that it allows you to treat your Windows file systems (mounted under /mnt/c, /mnt/d, etc.) as case sensitive. This means, among other things, that you can create files whose names differ only by case (e.g. foo.txt and FOO.TXT). However, using those files in Windows was ...

Automatically Configuring WSL

February 7, 2018 Feb 7, 2018 02/7/18

Craig Wilhite

Beginning with Insider Build 17093, we added a method for you to automatically configure certain functionality in WSL that will be applied every time you launch the subsystem. This includes automount options and network configuration. We're introducing a file called wsl.conf to handle these configurations. For example, we released a blog ...

Windows/WSL Interop with AF_UNIX

February 7, 2018 Feb 7, 2018 02/7/18

Craig Wilhite

Starting in Windows Insider build 17093, a WSL application can communicate with a Windows application over Unix sockets. Back in December, we blogged about bringing AF_UNIX to Windows. Now, we're building on that functionality. Consider a requirement where you want to run some kind of service as a Windows application. Additionally, you would ...

Chmod/Chown WSL Improvements

January 12, 2018 Jan 12, 2018 01/12/18

Craig Wilhite

We've added new file system features to WSL in Insider Build 17063. You can now set the owner and group of files using chmod/chown and modify read/write/execute permissions in WSL. You can also create special files like fifos, unix sockets, and device files. We're introducing new mounting options with DrvFs for projecting permissions onto ...

Share Environment Vars between WSL and Windows

December 22, 2017 Dec 22, 2017 12/22/17

Craig Wilhite

Hey WSL users—we have more features to share with you! Our latest Windows Insider build lets you share environment variables between WSL and Windows. Starting with Build 17063, let’s look at how you can leverage the new “WSLENV” to enhance environmental variable interop between Win32/WSL. Summary For the pros who’ve already heard ...

Do not change Linux files using Windows apps and tools

November 17, 2016 Nov 17, 2016 11/17/16

Rich Turner

Update - May 2019 Windows 10 version 1903 has now been released and allows an important update to WSL that allows Windows applications and tools to access Linux files directly. To do this, WSL hosts a new 9P fileserver, which exposes distro filesystems to Windows apps and tools via \\wsl$\<DistroName>\! You can read all about the ...

More easily invoke Windows apps and tools from Bash on Windows

November 10, 2016 Nov 10, 2016 11/10/16

Rich Turner

Along with support for ifconfig & network connection enumeration, Windows 10 Insider Build 14965 delivers a small but important change was made which will enable you more easily invoke Windows tools & applications from within Bash: Your Windows user environment path is now appended to the WSL path by default. This means you can now ...