Client-side support for usbipd-win / automatic attach after boot

[bimmerdriver]

I wish Hyper-V and WSL had native support for USB, but that's not what this is about. I'm using usbpid-win with WSL / Ubuntu. It works well-enough for my application, which doesn't require high bandwidth. My only criticism is that there is no mechanism for automatically attaching a USB device upon booting. In my case, when WSL boots, it starts a service that is required by other services and it requires a connection to a USB device (a software-defined radio). Since the USB is not attached automatically, the service doesn't start properly, causing one of the other three services to also not start properly, so I have to manually shut them all down, attach the USB, then restart the services.

I asked @dorssel about this and he considers client-side support of usbipd-win to be beyond the scope of his project. That's his prerogative, but since usb-ipd-win is the only way to support USB within WSL, the lack of client-side support is unfortunate.

I'm not a linux expert, but I understand this could either be done using rc.local, which would have to be enabled using systemd, or by making a new service using systemd.

If someone has already done this, I would like to know how you did it.

Thank you.

[bimmerdriver]

I was hoping someone would reply. Since there has been no reply, I thought I would start by trying usbip on WSL2.

When I tried to run usbip, the reply was:

Command 'usbip' not found, but can be installed with:
sudo apt install linux-intel-iotg-tools-common # version 5.15.0-1043.49, or
sudo apt install linux-nvidia-6.2-tools-common # version 6.2.0-1003.3~22.04.1
sudo apt install linux-nvidia-tools-common # version 5.15.0-1040.40
sudo apt install linux-tools-common # version 5.15.0-88.98
sudo apt install linux-nvidia-5.19-tools-common # version 5.19.0-1014.14
sudo apt install linux-nvidia-tegra-igx-tools-common # version 5.15.0-1005.5
sudo apt install linux-nvidia-tegra-tools-common # version 5.15.0-1018.18
sudo apt install linux-xilinx-zynqmp-tools-common # version 5.15.0-1023.27

I tried to install linux-tools-common, but the output said it wasn't compatible, so I searched further.

I found this: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/connecting-usb-devices-to-wsl/#comment-5658

I created the script and ran it.

$ sudo install_linux_tools_generic -s
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
hwdata linux-tools-5.15.0-97 linux-tools-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
hwdata linux-tools-5.15.0-97 linux-tools-5.15.0-97-generic linux-tools-common
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

After running the script, I tried running usbip. Here is the response:

$ usbip
WARNING: usbip not found for kernel 5.15.133.1-microsoft

You may need to install the following packages for this specific kernel:
linux-tools-5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
linux-cloud-tools-5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2

You may also want to install one of the following packages to keep up to date:
linux-tools-standard-WSL2
linux-cloud-tools-standard-WSL2

Which package should I install?