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https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/wsl
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Add an option for "UNIX username" and "password" to WSL CLI #10386

Open jan-revay opened 10 months ago

jan-revay commented 10 months ago

When running wsl --install Debian

User is required to provide username and password:

Enter new UNIX username: jr
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Installation successful!

I would like to be able to run wsl --install in a noninteractive mode (as a part of a script).

Describe the solution you'd like Add sub-options --install-username and --install-password to wsl --install command. The expected usage would be: wsl --install Debian --install-username jr --install-password 1234

Describe alternatives you've considered There are some awkward ways that this can be done in PowerShell e.g. https://superuser.com/questions/1569186/unattended-wsl-ubuntu-18-04-installation-from-powershell, but I don't want to maintain 40 line script for such a simple task.

Additional context I am installing a configuring WSL as a part of an automatic Ansible-like init script here: https://github.com/jan-revay/initPC/ (so that every time I get a new machine, I don't have to configure it manually), but as WSL is not capable of being installed in a non-interactive mode - the script stops executing during WSL install (see: https://github.com/jan-revay/initPC/blob/stable/Windows_10/wsl_install.ps1). I would like the script to be fully non-interactive, so I can start it and come to a fully configured machine in 45 minutes.

rwe-dtroup commented 4 months ago

I configured all of this to work calling a shell script and Ansible (via PS) inside WSL. The annoyance is the username prompt when you boot up the instance for the first time. It would be really useful to be able to pass in the [--root] option directly to wsl when running the deployment like this:

C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe -ArgumentList "--install -d $distribution --web-download

Instead of calling the executable for each distribution directly

I work around it by killing the executable after 30 seconds, but I'd rather it just didn't appear at all.

ChewyUSCloud commented 1 month ago

This is a bad workaround, because in some environments this is not complete after even around 5 minutes or more. My customer has this issue in GCC High, their Internet access is slow and it can take 5 to 15 minute for the script to complete. It would be better if there were options to pass the username and password, or skip it altogether and let it just install for root. We are going to escalate a ticket to see if we can get any additional information or assistance on this issue.

rwe-dtroup commented 1 month ago

This is a bad workaround, because in some environments this is not complete after even around 5 minutes or more. My customer has this issue in GCC High, their Internet access is slow and it can take 5 to 15 minute for the script to complete. It would be better if there were options to pass the username and password, or skip it altogether and let it just install for root. We are going to escalate a ticket to see if we can get any additional information or assistance on this issue.

It actually waited for the download to complete before it kills the exe for the distribution. I updated the script so it completes download and uses the actual exe for the distribution in the end, for which you can call it with the --root option which does not launch the standard user creation script. I then call ansible within wsl and configure the user and software etc.