WSL Archives

Configuring Docker Desktop on WSL2

February 11, 2024

First steps, you’ll need to install and configure WSL2. To install WSL2 you can use the Microsoft Store or follow these instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

Then to install Docker to run on Windows and WSL2 you’ll need to follow these instructions: https://docs.docker.com/desktop/wsl/

During some testing and trying to simplify my WSL2 environment I stumbled upon an annoying issue that prevented me from running docker ps each time I attempted to run docker ps I’d receive the following error.

1	permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock: Get "http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/containers/json": dial unix /var/run/docker.sock: connect: permission denied

To get around this issue you’ll need to run the following commands:

sudo adduser $USER docker

newgrp docker

sudo chown root:docker /var/run/docker.sock

sudo chmod g+w /var/run/docker.sock

Once those are ran you should be able to run docker without hitting permissions errors.

Those commands are adding/ensuring that the docker group exists and adding your existing user to the docker group. It then modifies the docker.sock to allow the docker group access to the socket.

development, docker, ubuntu, windows, wsl, wsl2

DevOps, Ubuntu, Uncategorized, Windows, WSL

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Installing ZSH on WSL: Ubuntu

January 7, 2024

Eric Anderson

Having moved away from development of Ansible/Python/Terraform, and others on Windows a few years ago. I’ve heard that WSL has become much better, especially with its support of VS Code now that they have a WSL connector. So, I decided to give it a try.

However, I did run into one surprising inconvenience, BASH! I have become so accustomed to ZSH over the years on Apple and using oh-my-zsh that all my shortcuts and quick ways to doing things just weren’t there.

I did attempt to use oh-my-bash but there just aren’t the number of plugins already to support the plethora of plugins I need and use on a regular basis. So, next logical step is to install ZSH on my WSL: Ubuntu system.

Requirements

WSL with Ubuntu installed

Steps to install ZSH

Install ZSH.

1	sudo apt install zsh

eanderson@MATRIX-WINDOWS:~$ sudo apt install zsh

[sudo] password for eanderson:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree... Done

Reading state information... Done

The following additional packages will be installed:

zsh-common

Suggested packages:

zsh-doc

The following NEW packages will be installed:

zsh zsh-common

0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Need to get 4794 kB of archives.

After this operation, 18.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Verify that ZSH has been installed on the system.

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zsh --version

1
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eanderson@MATRIX-WINDOWS:~$ zsh --version
zsh 5.8.1 (x86_64-ubuntu-linux-gnu)
Set ZSH as your default shell.
NOTE: This used to require modifications to the shortcut to access WSL but in newer versions of WSL you can use the following.

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chsh -s /bin/zsh

For older versions you will need to modify the shortcut to WSL and use the command:

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%systemroot%\system32\bash.exe ~ -c /bin/zsh
Once you close and reopen your WSL Ubuntu shell you should now be in ZSH shell.

Install of Oh-my-zsh

Ensure that your terminal session is open and use the following command as per https://ohmyz.sh/#install

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sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
You should now be able to configure your oh-my-zsh installation by modifying your .zshrc file and enable any plugins you need.
The final result!