Add an option for "UNIX username" and "password" to WSL CLI

[jan-revay]

When running
wsl --install Debian

User is required to provide username and password:

Enter new UNIX username: jr
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Installation successful!

I would like to be able to run wsl --install in a noninteractive mode (as a part of a script).

Describe the solution you'd like
Add sub-options --install-username and --install-password to wsl --install command. The expected usage would be:
wsl --install Debian --install-username jr --install-password 1234

Describe alternatives you've considered
There are some awkward ways that this can be done in PowerShell e.g. https://superuser.com/questions/1569186/unattended-wsl-ubuntu-18-04-installation-from-powershell, but I don't want to maintain 40 line script for such a simple task.

Additional context
I am installing a configuring WSL as a part of an automatic Ansible-like init script here: https://github.com/jan-revay/initPC/ (so that every time I get a new machine, I don't have to configure it manually), but as WSL is not capable of being installed in a non-interactive mode - the script stops executing during WSL install (see: https://github.com/jan-revay/initPC/blob/stable/Windows_10/wsl_install.ps1). I would like the script to be fully non-interactive, so I can start it and come to a fully configured machine in 45 minutes.

[rwe-dtroup]

I configured all of this to work calling a shell script and Ansible (via PS) inside WSL. The annoyance is the username prompt when you boot up the instance for the first time. It would be really useful to be able to pass in the [--root] option directly to wsl when running the deployment like this:

C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe -ArgumentList "--install -d $distribution --web-download

Instead of calling the executable for each distribution directly

I work around it by killing the executable after 30 seconds, but I'd rather it just didn't appear at all.

[ChewyUSCloud]

This is a bad workaround, because in some environments this is not complete after even around 5 minutes or more. My customer has this issue in GCC High, their Internet access is slow and it can take 5 to 15 minute for the script to complete. It would be better if there were options to pass the username and password, or skip it altogether and let it just install for root. We are going to escalate a ticket to see if we can get any additional information or assistance on this issue.

[rwe-dtroup]

This is a bad workaround, because in some environments this is not complete after even around 5 minutes or more. My customer has this issue in GCC High, their Internet access is slow and it can take 5 to 15 minute for the script to complete. It would be better if there were options to pass the username and password, or skip it altogether and let it just install for root. We are going to escalate a ticket to see if we can get any additional information or assistance on this issue.

It actually waited for the download to complete before it kills the exe for the distribution. I updated the script so it completes download and uses the actual exe for the distribution in the end, for which you can call it with the --root option which does not launch the standard user creation script. I then call ansible within wsl and configure the user and software etc.

[swittenberger]

I've been struggling for a few days to get a workaround for this. Why isn't there already a way to do this automatically in a non-interactive way? Are there any plans to add this feature?

wsl --install Ubuntu --install-username $user_name --install-password $password

[rwe-dtroup]

I ended up calling the wsl --install command like this, you'll need to wrap it in some powershell script to wait for the application to finish downloading etc. but I add the user and config in the shell script which wsl calls afterwards as root.

wsl.exe --install -d ubuntu --no-launch

ubuntu.exe install --root

wsl.exe -d ubuntu --user root -- /bin/bash some_shell_script.sh

It would be easier to have a way to not invoke the user directly from wsl, but I don't think that's currently possible.

[shigenobuokamoto]

how about this?

https://canonical-ubuntu-wsl.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/tutorials/cloud-init/

[whut]

Looks like the approach --no-launch and then running own script to set up user with password, like @rwe-dtroup mentioned works well.

But if you need to set up user name only, just run pwsh -C { $env:USERNAME="MyNewUserName"; wsl --install ... }. This, at least in case of Ubuntu, will be picked up in script /usr/lib/wsl/wsl-setup (run because of entry in /etc/wsl-distribution.conf). The script takes default user name from USERNAME environment variable from Windows.