Guide of accessing networking apps have a few information missing

[taoyouh]

Type of issue

Missing information

Feedback

The guide of accessing networking apps have a few information missing:

• I think the NAT networking mode is only for WSL2, but the document doesn't clarify this.
• The first part "Identify IP address" is mostly duplicate with the "Default networking mode: NAT" part. It's better to put them inside the "NAT" part.
• "Accessing Linux networking apps from Windows (localhost)": this does not work when I set localhostForwarding=false in .wslconfig (see Main WSL settings)
• "Accessing Windows networking apps from Linux (host IP)":
  • In recent versions, the firewall is enabled by default. Without modifying Firewall rules, I cannot access Windows port.
  • The screenshot is using cat /etc/resolv.conf, which is different from the one shown in the text, and does not work with DNS tunneling enabled (this is by default enabled in recent versions).
  • The screenshot (the right side) says "Server running at http://127.0.0.1:5000", but the below section "Connecting via remote IP addresses" says you need to listen on 0.0.0.0. I tried and I found listening on 127.0.0.1 doesn't work.
• "Accessing a WSL 2 distribution from your local area network (LAN)" part also cat /etc/resolv.conf for the IP address of the Windows machine as seen from WSL 2 (the WSL 2 VM)": this returns the incorrect IP when DNS tunneling is on (which is the default case).

Page URL

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/networking

Content source URL

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/wsl/blob/main/WSL/networking.md

Author

@mattwojo

Document Id

f9e21bfa-6316-7d45-3b34-834a78bcaf0f

[craigloewen-msft]

@mattwojo let's remove this reference to cat /etc/resolv.conf and standardize to this command instead: ip route show | grep -i default | awk '{ print $3}'

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/networking#:~:text=cat%20/etc/resolv.conf%20for%20the%20IP%20address%20of%20the%20Windows%20machine%20as%20seen%20from%20WSL%202%20(the%20WSL%202%20VM)