WSL2 doesn't work after using su to change user - visual-studio-code

I'm using WSL2 with the Remote - WSL extension for Visual Studio Code.
If I do code ., Visual Code opens in the specified folder. However, if I change user with su, the same command outputs:
Command 'code' not found, did you mean:
...

You seem to be running into this issue, where the Remote extension always uses the default user.
While no solution here is ideal, there are (at least) three options, depending on your exact use-case:
Temporarily change the default user:
You'll need to sudo -e /etc/wsl.conf and add:
[user]
default=other_username
Then wsl --terminate <distro> (from PowerShell, CMD, or the Start menu), then restart.
Use two different WSL instances with different default users in each one.
Possibly, give your default user permissions to whatever files you are trying to edit for the other user.

Related

Redirect WSL input in Powershell

I've been trying to write a powershell script that automates my windows workspace setup and configuration and am currently stuck trying to redirect input to WSL when executing it for the first time. The core of the problem is that Ubuntu's first launch prompts for a username and password, then logs in to a bash shell. I tried writing down the input lines into a text file like so:
Username
Password
Password
exit
Then, I tried redirecting the input of wsl to the file:
Start-Process ubuntu2004.exe -RedirectStandardInput stdin.txt -NoNewWindow -Wait
The above didn't work as executing WSL just starts spamming Enter new UNIX username: adduser: only one or two names allowed. I tried doing same in CMD with the < input redirection, but the result is the same.
This is not exactly the answer to your question, but in my opinion, ansible is better suited for such a task.
I myself recently became interested in assembling a workspace in wsl and ansible seemed to me the best solution.
Before starting the build, you will need to perform minimal steps (create a user and install several packages, all this can be placed in the readme), but then there will be no restrictions.
You can find several ready-made examples of wsl assembly via ansible on github.
A few ideas for setting the username/password in a new Ubuntu WSL instance:
First, a "PowerShell sendkeys" via COM or Interop might work for this. It's probably the closest in behavior to what you are actually asking.
Second, and perhaps most promising, I just tried this with a new Debian WSL installed from the Store (since I didn't want to mess with my Ubuntu install).
When running debian.exe (like ubuntu2004.exe), I let it run the install, then I Ctrl+C'd out of it when it started asking for the default username/password. At that point, the WSL instance is installed, but with only root. I assume that your script can let the command run for a certain period of time, then kill the process to replicate this.
From your script, you should then be able to run wsl -u root useradd --create-home --user-group --groups adm,dialout,cdrom,floppy,sudo,audio,dip,video,plugdev,netdev --password "encryptedPassword" username (see here for creating the encrypted password). I think that will get you a stock Ubuntu user the way that WSL sets it up.
You'll then need to either create a /etc/wsl.conf file (instructions) letting the instance know that that user is the default, or LxRunOffline lists this as one of its features.
But I'd also throw in that you might just want to keep a "backup" of an existing WSL instance that you start from. Do a wsl --export <distroname> <imagename.tgz>, then you can import it when setting up the new Windows host by copying the tgz over and doing a wsl --import <DistroName> <DirectoryWhereYouwantItToLive> <imagename.tgz>.
If you want, you can keep this image up to date with your desired WSL configuration, so that you don't have to recreate it when you rebuild the Windows hosts. That said, this is where I do follow #Mystic's suggestion of using Ansible to store my WSL "configuration as code". It allows me to not only recreate my WSL instances, but also that same configuration when I set (or reset) a Linode host or another Linux system.

WSL Interop PATH customization

I have an Ubuntu-18.04 WSL instance installed and have a large set of scripts installed in it at /home/username/bin/scripts.
I have also updated the $HOME/.bashrc, $HOME/.bash_profile, /etc/bash.bashrc, /etc/profile and /etc/environment files to update $PATH to include /home/username/bin/scripts in the path.
*I'm well aware i only usually need it in my $HOME/.bash_profile, lots of places from experimenting
Say I have a script called sampleScript in /home/username/bin/scripts, when i try to run the command:
wsl sampleScript
It gives the error: /bin/bash: sampleScript: command not found
If I open up wsl in interactive mode I can run it just fine, but I would like to be able to expose the script to not be run in interactive mode.
I've tried making an environment variable SPATH='/home/username/bin/scripts' and setting WSLENV=SPATH/p, but it also does not show up if i do wsl echo $PATH.
*I'm doing this all in command line instead of powershell b/c powershell doesn't appear to be able to do wsl echo $PATH at all, it just returns empty
I have also tried: wsl -u username sampleScript; with no luck
Is there a way to customize the PATH for wsl interop mode or am i doing something incorrectly with WSLENV?

How to start WSL terminal in a current powershell directory?

I can open a powershell and type
> Ubuntu
to open a WSL ubuntu shell on windows 10. This will always take me to the WSL home directory. How would I instead open the terminal in the same location that the powershell is currently in?
FYI. I need this for creating a right click "open terminal here" type registery key for windows explorer.
If we look at what running ubuntu.exe actually does:
PS C:\> ubuntu.exe /?
Launches or configures a Linux distribution.
Usage:
<no args>
Launches the user's default shell in the user's home directory.
install [--root]
Install the distribution and do not launch the shell when complete.
--root
Do not create a user account and leave the default user set to root.
run <command line>
Run the provided command line in the current working directory. If no
command line is provided, the default shell is launched.
config [setting [value]]
Configure settings for this distribution.
Settings:
--default-user <username>
Sets the default user to <username>. This must be an existing user.
help
Print usage information.
We can see that it by default launches the WSL shell inside the home directory. If we want run inside it inside the current directory open in PowerShell, we need to specify the run option. So the full command will be ubuntu.exe run.
Another option is to just run wsl.exe or bash.exe. These commands will by default open WSL in the current working directory.
Note: We don't need to specify the .exe after the commands. Running ubuntu, wsl and bash all work as well. PowerShell knows how to run executables without specifying the extension.
method 1:
set Ubuntu to wsl default distribution by wsl --set-default Ubuntu
just type wsl and you are in the current Powershell directory
method 2:
open other folder
wsl.exe --cd $pwd or wsl.exe --cd "path"

Updating environmental variables in Visual Studio Code on Linux

I changed the environmental variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH from the Ubuntu terminal (because I was receiving an error) and the changes were applied when I ran code (a Python code) from the terminal. But when I ran the same script from the Visual Studio Code, the error remains. How to update the environmental variable so that Visual Studio Code sees it, as well?
Environment variables are passed from parent process to child process; they are not (say) global to the system or the user. If you change a variable in one shell, the change is only seen in that shell and any processes started from that shell. So the simplest solution is to change the variable and then start VSCode from that same shell:
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/some/useful/path
$ code
If you want to keep using that shell for other things, run it in the background:
$ code >/dev/null 2>&1 &
The redirection to /dev/null is needed because otherwise VSCode prints logging information periodically, and that output will be mixed with whatever else you're doing.
If you want to set the variable permanently, see the question How do I set a user environment variable? (permanently, not session). After following those instructions, you'll need to start a new shell (and possibly even logout and login) first so the settings take effect. Then launch VSCode from the new shell.

Unable to run PostgreSQL as Windows service

I had this in my Windows services:
C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/pg_ctl.exe runservice -N "postgresql-8.4" -D "D:/PostgreSQL/8.4/data" -w
It never finishes executing. But if I did this on the dos shell:
C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/pg_ctl.exe start -N "postgresql-8.4" -D "D:/PostgreSQL/8.4/data" -w
Notice that I only changed the "runservice" to "start" and it works just fine.
Any idea?
The command runservice can only be executed by the service manager
in order to fix my localhost windows 7 to start postgres as a service
i used the following command to start the data
pg_ctl -D "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.1\data" start
Then checked the status for errors
pg_ctl -D "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.1\data" status
if you get error 1063 , its more than likely permissions, i executed the following command
cacls "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.1\data" /E /T /C /G postgres:F
then reran the start/status, it showed everything fine, but still service manager would not start the service
So, in Services->postgresql->options->logon i set the log on as the Local system account instead of the postgres user, and voila it worked
this happened to me because i set my data directory to be somewhere the postgres windows user account didn't have access to.
I had this problem in Windows after a system crash. Running the first command showed invalid data in C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.1\data\postmaster.pid. Deleting that file did the trick. Reference.
I faced the same issue after moving manually the database data files (PG_DATA directory) without recreating all the necessary permissions.
Here is how I solved my issue:
1. Check permissions on old PG_DATA directory:
cacls "c:\path\to\old\pgdata\dir"
2. Check permissions on new PG_DATA directory:
cacls "d:\path\to\NEW\pgdata\dir"
3. Compare outputs from 1. and 2.
Find the differences between users and/or permissions then synchronize them.
Nota: I found it easier to use explorer for the synchronization step rather than using cacls directly from the command line.
If you changed pg_hba.conf , maybe you missed somewhere in file. For example there must be CIDR after IP in that file. It must be like 192.168.1.100/32
If you forgot to put 32, then server doesnt restart.
Investigation of startup logs could be a clue. For the case problem is in the pg_hba.conf you could see something like this:
2018-11-13 00:39:34.841 PST [8284] FATAL: could not load pg_hba.conf
2018-11-13 00:39:34.842 PST [8284] LOG: database system is shut down
You need to check your logfiles and the windows eventlog for some hint of what the problem is. If there is nothing at all there, you need to break out something like Process Monitor and get a stacktrace of where it's hung.
I have had this issue in the past, and it was that the installer did not set up the permissions correctly for the user that the service was to run as.
I've also ran into this problem with postgresql throwing and error after trying to initialize the database cluster. After analyzing the log files and running command line scripts for 4 hours I've got the solution to anyone running into this problem for Windows Versions.
This is not a detailed description as to why its happening. I've installed odoo 10, 11, 12 and 13 numerous times on countless client servers and windows systems and this is the first time I've ever ran into this problem. I cant say if its because I have MS VS Enterprise installed and Android Studio on this machine or what. But Below is the easy answer on how to fix it and initialize the cluster and create the database files in the data folder.
Open the data folder for postgresql. - For Odoo installs it will normally be "C:\Program Files (x86)\Odoo 13.0\PostgreSQL" Unless you chose another location when installing.
Remove any or all files from this folder - If not you will get an error when running initdb.exe
Right click the data folder and open up the properties for it. Click on the Security tab and then click the advanced button on the bottom.
You need to change the owner of this folder to openpgsvc. Click Change and type in openpgsvc and click ok. Once done click the check box below saying that you want this change to affect containers with this container as well.
Then on the Permissions tab click the add button on the bottom. You need to add openpgsvc as a user and give this user full rights. Click apply and and ok to close out of all the folder properties.
Now you need to open cmd.exe - Once open we are going to call initdb.exe and pass some values to it as well.
First run chdir and change the working directory to the location of initdb.exe. For me, running odoo 13 on a windows 10 machine the location is this..
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Odoo 13.0\PostgreSQL\bin"
There is one variable that need to be passed as well to make this work here is the list. NEEDS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE CALL TO initdb.exe
Postgres Data Dir: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Odoo 13.0\PostgreSQL\data"
The End Result with the parameter would look like this for my installation:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Odoo 13.0\PostgreSQL\bin\initdb.exe" -D "C:\Program Files (x86)\Odoo 13.0\PostgreSQL\data"
Hit Enter and let it rip. The output of this command should look like this below.
Cmd.exe running initdb.exe script
Make sure there is no buggy empty file Program at C:\ like C:\Program
In this case, explorer will warn whenever you log on into Windows.
File Name Warning
-----------------
There is a file or folder on your computer called "C:\Program" which
could cause certain applications to not function correctly. Renaming it
to "C:\Program1" would solve this problem. Would you like to rename
it now?
Installing PostgreSQL 10 On Windows 7 (yes the clock is ticking...). I first tried the latest version 11 which completely failed to install... not a good sign for Windows users. Anyway.
Quick answer: Change the account in the Windows Services panel from Network to Local.
Details of my case
During installation I created/selected a data folder in the user profile folder, because obviously the folder suggested by default, within the program folder, wouldn't work, and if it worked it would be a very idea to put data here (I don't know whether it's usual to do that on Unix/Linux, but for Windows it's it's not allowed for a long time).
At the end (when populating the data cluster) I received an error:
Failed to load SQL Modules into database Cluster
but the installation was able to complete. I found two pages about previous error, here and here, but they didn't seem relevant to my case, so I just started pgAdmin and, on the left "browser", saw the server wasn't active.
I tried to start it from here (had to type the main password), but it went inactive immediately again. So I tried to use the Windows services panel to start "postgresql-x64-10", no joy. I copied the command from this panel and pasted it into a Windows console (cmd.exe) where I finally received this
error 1063.
Searching I found this related question, and was convinced the problem was about permissions.
Solution working for my case
In the services panel I changed the account used to start the service from Network Service to Local System as suggested in a comment by #AlexanderRios.
sc create "postgresql-9.2" binPath= "\"C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/9.2/bin/pg_ctl.exe\" runservice -N \"postgresql-9.2\" -D \"C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/9.2/data\" -w" DisplayName= "postgresql-9.2" start= auto
Try this on CMD run as Administrator
(Add your parameters depend on your version)
Stop all postgres processes
Go to the postgres data folder (C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.6\data)
Delete the postmaster.opts and postmaster.pid files
From the control panel, in administrative
tools and the services console start the postgres service
open pgAdmin III and then in right pane find server then just right click and connect, enter the password. after connected go to the browser and refresh ODOO. Problem solved.
See image to get better understanding