VSCode: how to ssh remote connect to remote WSL2

Question

Is it possible in VSCode to edit files within WSL2 of a remote PC. (This is like a combination of Remote-WSL and Remote-SSH.) I can connect to that remote PC via ssh and RDP.

The path \\\\wsl$\\ does not seem to be available in my remote-ssh connection.

PCA - me, local, VSCode
^
|
ssh and/or RDP
|
V
PCB - remote, WSL2

(I currently have Windows OpenSSH set up on the remote PC, with the default CMD shell. I tried setting the shell to Bash but then the remote extension wouldn't install.)

Update Setting PC-B's ssh server shell to bash.exe does solve all my problems. I'm not sure why it didn't work before. See my answer below for more details.

Answer 1

Answering my own question I was certain I'd tried this before and it had not worked, but now that I try it again it works. Perhaps I just needed a reboot of Windows and WSL2.

1. Enable Windows SSH server on PC-B and set the shell to be bash.exe

# Powershell as Administrator
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\OpenSSH" -Name DefaultShell -Value "C:\WINDOWS\System32\bash.exe" -PropertyType String -Force

2. Using Remote-SSH connect VSCode from PC-A to PC-B (using Windows credentials) and tell VSCode that it is a linux server (because you're connecting to bash.exe within WSL2).

   • If you're behind a proxy server, add the proxy to your ~/.wgetrc .

3. Voila.

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These steps taken from THE EASY WAY how to SSH into Bash and WSL2 on Windows 10 from an external machine where you can find more details.

Answer 2

If you want to connect to remote WSL, you probably should set it up to run own sshd instead of relying on hosting Windows to do the tunneling. If I have got your problem statement right, the flow seems to be outlined in one of VS Code blog posts . Here I'll mention steps I think you will need to get to your target state.

Firstly, disable sshd on remote Windows so it does not occupy port 22. then, install and start sshd inside PCB :

# from PCB command prompt
# something like that, depending on your choice of distro
sudo apt remove openssh-server && sudo apt install openssh-server
# this would again depend on your chosen distro
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start # after i do this - windows pops up a firewall prompt to allow me create a rule. you might need to add it manually

then you'd need to either enable password logins via ssh or ( preferably ) generate a key pair and put your public key into /home/your_name/.ssh/authorized_keys on PCB .

Assuming you have OpenSSH for Windows installed (this seems to be the client Remote SSH relies on), on your PCA follow something like so:

# something along these lines on your PCA
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>ssh-keygen
# note location of .pub file and copy its contents into remote ./ssh/authorized_keys
# add generated private key to ssh-agent service
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Start-Service ssh-agent # if this fails - ensure service is installed and enabled
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> ssh-add path\to\your\private_key # ensure you have dropped all permission except your own user

Watch out for permissions: ssh keys are considered secret, so neither client nor server would start unless you drop all permissions from your key material. On linux do chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys , and for windows ssh-agent follow instructions from this SE answer .

The above may seem a bit daunting but is in fact very standard SSH setup procedure

Answer 3

easy steps

1. just update your vscode to the latest version
2. install Remote Development extension pack
3. allow WSL2 connection in the settings
4. if my answer helped you upvoted :D