Keep WSL2 instance with systemd alive

[hrsto]

I use WSL2 with systemd and run lots of background services. But WSL2 shuts down itself seconds after i exit all terminals. To prevent this from happening, i have to launch a command like nohup sleep 100d &. There must be a way to disable that auto shutdown behavior in a non hacky way; %UserProfile%/.wslconfig vmIdleTimeout=-1 is not working or not doing what its name implies described.

[TonalidadeHidrica]

Hi, I am having the same issue. Are there plans to fix this issue so that we do not need nohup sleep-ing hack?

[Trevorcat]

Hi, I've met this issue these days, because I construct a new PC.
There is no issue with my old one. I can just open WSL once, exit the terminal window and the Ubuntu can keep running in the background.
There is no gap between those PCs about the configuration. Is any idea about this?

I found a WA for this, using tmux in WSL, entering into tmux console, and immediately using control + B and pressing D to detach tmux window but letting it run in the background. then the WSL will keep alive even if I close all WSL windows. But it's really clumsy.

[daniel-slater]

Adding this to your .bashrc makes it a bit less clumsy:

if ! tmux ls > /dev/null 2>&1; then
        tmux new -d > /dev/null 2>&1
fi

[daniel-slater]

But seriously, it's crazy that we can't just disable it in the .wslconfig file.

[Biswa96]

You can force WSL2 to keep running with:

[wsl2]
vmIdleTimeout=-1

in %userprofile%/.wslconfig

See #10138

[daniel-slater]

Nope- that doesn't work. I've had that in my .wslconfig all along. All that does is keep the VM running in the background. It does not prevent your distribution from stopping after the last terminal closes, even with systemd running.

[geekhal]

Any progress about this issue? I have met the same problem too. When I don't operate the wsl for some time, the wsl won't react for anymore, I have to shut it down and restart it.

[Metalgurke]

The following works for me
Type into the terminal:

wsl --exec dbus-launch true

Even if all terminals are now closed, WSL2 continues to run for me until I explicitly call wsl --shutdown. For example, I can still access my Apache server and other services. After a Windows restart I have to enter the command again, but this can be automated.

I had seen the solution here: #10138