corriander / wsl-init

For Windows 10 WSL, makes hidden bash init process with auto-runned init\* scripts (like ssh-agent).

WSL-init

Creates a simple framework for Windows Subsystem for Linux init capability using a hidden console on Windows login.

This is a small adaptation of doig-u's generalisation of bahamas10's original method for getting a persistent background ssh-agent for WSL. WSL supports background tasks now, but still doesn't allow for startup tasks at the time of writing.

See the original for details about the persistent ssh-agent method (it may be that some of this is redundant with recent background task support but I haven't investigated). In any case, the main benefit of this is to execute the contents of init.d on some trigger (e.g. as a startup application, or a scheduled task).

Install

In WSL, for example if you have a link to C:\Users\<USER> via ~/userprofile and you wish to install directly under the user profile:

git clone https://github.com/corriander/wsl-init
cd wsl-init
bash install.sh ~/userprofile/wsl-init

Alternatively, bash install.sh /mnt/c/Users/bob/wsl-init is the explicit form and naturally also works.

install.sh will prompt to create a shortcut in the user profile's startup folder. Alternatively, wsl-init.vbs could be invoked by Windows task scheduler or some other trigger.

Other install methods

Using install.sh from Git Bash isn't fully supported; \c\... type drive notation hasn't been handled and it fails on creating a startup shortcut. doig-u's method should also still work as before:

Download or clone repo, run the install.bat for install the scripts in your %USERPROFILE%\wsl-init dir and make a shortcut %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\wsl-init.lnk for autostart.

Uninstall

• Delete %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\wsl-init.lnk or whatever orchestration method was set up.
• Delete wsl-init directory and contents.

Usage

wsl-init.sh is called by wsl-init.bat which is called by wsl-init.vbs; this chain execs the contents of init.d via a persistent bash process so you could start web servers, services, and so on.

ssh-agent setup

ssh-agent is the example init script; it starts an ssh agent in the background allowing keys to be added and retrieved without passphrases across multiple bash sessions.

Attaching to the ssh-agent process

When the ssh-agent is started, its details are put in ~/.ssh/environment. These can be used to connect to it within a given session. Something like the following will attach a bash session to the ssh-agent automatically on Ubuntu login:

echo ". ~/.ssh/environment" >> .profile

Put this wherever makes sense, bearing in mind that .ssh/environment could potentially get stale or not exist.

Adding keys

The AddKeysToAgent directive can be used in ~/.ssh/config to auto-add keys, or ssh-add could just be called manually. Or something.