wsl2 can't run in the background after enabling systemd

Question

After I tried to enable systemd, I found that wsl does not run in the background anymore, there must be a window to keep it running, including ssh connections, and it closes automatically in less than a minute.

When I closed systemd, it was able to keep running in the background again.

I've seen similar documentation, but there seems to be a difference between the description and not enabling systemds

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-my/windows/wsl/faq#can-i-use-wsl-for-production-scenarios--

I would like to know how to keep the service running in the background with systemd enabled

Answer 1

Hello there,

How did you enable the enable systemd ?

You can try to disable systemd in conf and manually start systemd using this script and see if that helps

https://github.com/khs1994-docker/lnmp/blob/9c93d7dbeff6bba96445771cb7cf94d87528d4c0/wsl2/ubuntu-wsl2-systemd-script/enter-systemd-namespace

Currently, you need a process running that's a child of the Microsoft init (like an interactive shell) to keep WSL from idle-terminating. If you don't want to leave something open, you can always nohup something.

This may change in future; there's an issue open about it here: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8854

MS's suggested solution for this request is that you start a tmux session and leave it running. You can even easily automate this.

Hope this resolves your Query !!

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