WSL version 2.0.12 makes $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not user accessible when guiApplications=false

[elsaco]

Windows Version

10.0.19045.3693

WSL Version

20.12.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2

Distro Version

Ubuntu 23.10

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

Set guiApplications = false and restart WSL

Expected Behavior

$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR user accessible

Actual Behavior

elsaco@mantic:~$ ls -lnd $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
drwx------ 2 0 0 4096 Nov  6 19:10 /run/user/1000/
elsaco@mantic:~$ ls -la $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
ls: cannot open directory '/run/user/1000/': Permission denied

It breaks systemd:

elsaco@mantic:~$ systemctl --user status
Failed to connect to bus: Permission denied

From debug console:

WSL (2) ERROR: ConfigHandleInteropMessage:595: getenv(XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) failed

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[github-actions]

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[OneBlue]

Thank you for reporting this @elsaco. I can't reproduce the issue.

Can you share /logs and the output of cat /etc/wsl.conf ?

[fknittel]

I've found a work-around. Once per wsl distribution and user you need to fix the permissions of the directory used to mount the ephemeral XDG_RUNTIME directory /mnt/wslg/run/user/

Example:

$ id -u
1000
$ sudo chown 1000:1000 /mnt/wslg/run/user/1000

After that, reboot your wsl and everything should be fine:

wsl.exe --shutdown

Does that work for you @elsaco?

In my opinion, /mnt/wslg/run/user shouldn't be bind-mounted to /run/user for guiApplications=false, because /mnt/wslg is not what /init expects it to be (initially doesn't exist and gets created on /).

[sgraf812]

This is a serious issue for me as well. Apparently I need to run @fknittel's workaround after every update.

My wsl.conf:

[network]
generateHosts = true
generateResolvConf = false

[wsl2]
#firewall = true 

[filesystem]
#umask = 0022

[user]
default=sgraf

[boot]
systemd=true

[jeffrson]

For me, /run/user is empty, so "1000" does not exist there at all, which breaks some applications because nevertheless XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set to /run/user/1000/