Microsoft Windows 10/11 WSL

Windows 10 ships with a technology known as WSL. WSL allows users to run Linux virtual machines transparently within the Windows 10 operating system.

Powershell: Install WSL with Default Ubuntu

wsl --install

To start Ubuntu under WSL, search for Ubuntu in the start menu and select the “Ubuntu on Windows” app. All class commands should be run on these Ubuntu terminals.

Full instructions and troubleshooting help is available in the Microsoft documentation.

Lastly, Windows users must open up a firewall port and forward that port to WSL to ensure the hardware can call back into F’ ground data system running in WSL. First we’ll need to note the IP address of the WSL machine. This is done with the following command in an administrator PowerShell.

wsl hostname -I

Record the output of this command for the next step. For this guide, we will use the value 127.0.0.1.

Next, we will add a firewall rule and forward it to the WSL instance. This is done with the following commands:

Warning: these commands work with the Windows firewall. Security and antivirus tools can run extra firewall rules. Users must allow the port 50000 (Or whichever port that is going to be used) or disable these extra firewall settings.

PowerShell: Add and Forward External Firewall Rule

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "fprime" -Direction inbound -Profile Any -Action Allow -LocalPort 50000 -Protocol TCP

Remember to change 127.0.0.1 to your recorded ip address as discovered with wsl hostname -I. Users are advised to remove this rule after the class has been completed.

IMPORTANT:

Go to the Ubuntu 20.04 / 22.04 / Generic Linux to finish setting up your WSL environment.