vagrant-wsl-docker

This repository will guide you how to setup docker command to be used directly from bash using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Prerequisites

• VirtualBox installed in Windows
• Vagrant installed in Windows
• Plugin vbguest installed in vagrant: vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest (automatically installed via the .vagrantplugins file)

How to set it up

Install docker client by running the following inside bash:

wget -O docker-cli.tgz -q https://download.docker.com/linux/static/stable/x86_64/docker-19.03.1.tgz \
  && tar -zxf docker-cli.tgz docker/docker \
  && rm docker-cli.tgz \
  && sudo cp docker/docker /usr/local/bin/docker \
  && rm docker/docker && rmdir docker

Next is to append configuration to ~/.bashrc for docker to use TCP instead of file:

echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://127.0.0.1:2375' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Note! Since 18.09 it is also possible to access the Docker daemon via SSH:

echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://vagrant@192.168.56.56' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Now when this is done the dockerclient is ready to go. It is now time to setup the VM which hosts the Docker daemon.

This guide assume you have Vagrant installed in Windows and therefore it is necessary for add an alias to ~/.bash_aliases to make Linux use the Vagrant in Windows:

echo "alias vagrant='vagrant.exe'" >> ~/.bash_aliases

Time to create the VM which hosts the Docker daemon and you do this by just making sure your current working directory is in the root of this repository and run the following:

Important! Ensure that IP range 192.168.56.1-192.168.56.255 is not used and handled by any DHCP in your network because this is used for the host-only network adapter. If this IP range is in use please look into the Advanced section how to change the configuration.

vagrant up

After this point the VM is ready and the Docker daemon is started. Test the docker client by running the following command:

docker info

General usage tip

After the you have setup everything and run the vagrant up once then from that point you can start and stop the box by explicitly specifying the ID. This ID can be found using the command vagrant global-status. Using the ID will allow you to start, stop and reprovision the box from any location (you do not need to go to the directory of the Vagrantfile).

Advanced

If you would like to override any configuration defined in default-config.yml then this is possible by adding a new file called user-config.yml in this directory (will be ignored by git). The easiest way to start modifying the configuration is to look at default-config.yml and just create the user-config.yml with only the variables you want to override.

For example if you want to disable the host-only network adapter and only use NAT, then the user-config.yml can look like this:

vagrant_use_host_only: 0

Proxy settings

You can so that the Vagrant box will use a proxy. Example below show you how to do this in your user-config.yml:

vagrant_proxy_enabled: true
vagrant_proxy_https: "http://localhost:3128"
vagrant_proxy_http: "http://localhost:3128"
vagrant_proxy_no: "localhost,127.0.0.1,.localdomain"

IMPORTANT! In Windows 10 vagrant-proxyconf plugin will work with version 1.5.2, 2.0.1 or later.