Fix WSL checks and run unit tests in CI #25522

l0rd · 2025-03-10T18:34:48Z

The output of wsl --status has changed with newer versions of Windows and WSL. It's output can still be parsed to figure out if the WSL cli is installed and if the WSL feature is enabled but the strings to look for have changed.

The checks have been fixed, some unit tests added and the unit tests are now part of the (cirrus) CI checks on Windows too.

Fixes #25234

Does this PR introduce a user-facing change?

None

openshift-ci · 2025-03-10T18:34:54Z

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mheon · 2025-03-10T19:38:00Z

Not going to lie, I kind of hate string-parsing error messages, but I'm assuming there isn't another way?

baude · 2025-03-10T19:47:45Z

@l0rd is it possible to begin to migrate support to only wsl2 ?

l0rd · 2025-03-11T08:31:23Z

Not going to lie, I kind of hate string-parsing error messages, but I'm assuming there isn't another way?

I hate that too. We introduced that a couple of years ago, and in the meantime, the output message of wsl.exe --status has (of course) changed, and our fragile output parsing got broken. The alternative is using a command that requires admin privileges (dism). Still, we don't want to require that for machine init, so my approach has been to fix the current issue by testing wsl --status with as many versions of the WSL cli as possible and adding the corresponding unit tests.

In the future, we may want to investigate how wsl.exe itself retrieves information about Windows features without requiring admin privileges. But even if we find the mechanism used by wsl.exe there may be no guarantee that it will work with future versions of Windows because it may not be a "public" API (dism is the tool to check Windows features).

l0rd · 2025-03-11T10:46:36Z

@l0rd is it possible to begin to migrate support to only wsl2 ?

That's already the case: if the WSL CLI is configured to use version 1 (that means that it uses the underlying WSL Windows feature rather than the Virtual Machine Platform) we try to change it to use version 2. And, if it that fails, machine init fails. This behavior has probably been introduced with the release of v5.0.

l0rd · 2025-03-11T13:09:12Z

cc @BlackHole1

Luap99 · 2025-03-11T20:07:51Z

winmake.ps1

+function Local-Unit {
+    Build-Ginkgo
+    $skippackages="pkg\machine\apple,pkg\machine\applehv,pkg\machine\e2e,pkg\machine\libkrun,pkg\machine\provider,pkg\machine\proxyenv,pkg\machine\qemu"
+    Run-Command "./test/tools/build/ginkgo.exe -vv -r --tags `"$remotetags`" -timeout=90m --trace --no-color --skip-package `"$skippackages`" pkg\machine"


Shouldn't we run all unit tests on windows not just pkg/machine? unit tests could be added anywhere.
point in case #25323

If these issue is that these do not pass then we need to do the hard work and have !windows build tags for them.

Luap99 · 2025-03-11T20:10:00Z

contrib/cirrus/win-podman-machine-test.ps1

+Write-Host "`nRunning podman-machine unit tests"
+Run-Command ".\winmake localunit"
+


This should not done like this.

Merging both tests will make it hard to figure out what failed. But most importantly this breaks all our CI assumptions that we have in our skip tests based on sources. machine tests will only run on machine changes, unit tests might be elsewhere, I do see that this is not the case right now but the next person will overlook this when they enable windows unit tests outside of pkg/machine.

This should really be its own top level task I would think like the existing unit test. That also means we do run them twice for WSL and hyperV, I guess right now they are fast enough so that this doesn't matter much but still.

BlackHole1 · 2025-03-12T02:56:34Z

pkg/machine/wsl/wutil/wutil.go

+	wslNotInstalledMessages = []string{"kernel file is not found", "The Windows Subsystem for Linux is not installed"}
+	vmpDisabledMessages     = []string{"enable the Virtual Machine Platform Windows feature", "Enable \"Virtual Machine Platform\""}
+	wslDisabledMessages     = []string{"enable the \"Windows Subsystem for Linux\" optional component"}


This does not apply to non-English speaking countries. We found that when the system language is Chinese, the output of WSL is also in Chinese.

We can only judge through specific strings, so the following sentences cannot work properly in non-English language systems:

kernel file is not found

The Windows Subsystem for Linux is not installed

enable the Virtual Machine Platform Windows feature

Enable "Virtual Machine Platform"

enable the "Windows Subsystem for Linux" optional component

In certain WSL versions in the Chinese system, Windows Subsystem for Linux will be Linux 的 Windows 子系统, Virtual Machine Platform will be 虚拟机平台

Thank you for your feedback @BlackHole1, you are right. I am afraid that Chinese is only the tip of the iceberg, there are 43 language packs for latest Windows. What's your suggestion?

In our code, we make judgments using the following keywords:

keywords := []string{"Windows Subsystem for Linux", "BIOS", "wsl.exe", "enablevirtualization", "WSL1"}

In our scenario, we require both Windows Subsystem for Linux and Virtual Machine Platform to be enabled at the same time, as this helps us avoid dealing with some edge cases.

For more information, see: https://github.com/oomol-lab/ovm-win/blob/0bf791ef3ff41a2800c47b822b07957f1cc6ffc0/pkg/wsl/check.go#L244-L294

Init System

No enable Features

No Update WSL

PS C:\Users\live> wsl --help 版权所有 (c) Microsoft Corporation。保留所有权利。用法: wsl.exe [参数] 参数: --install 安装适用于 Linux 的 Windows 子系统。如果未指定任何选项，建议的功能将与默认分发版一起安装。有关安装选项的完整列表，请访问 https://aka.ms/wslinstall。 --update 更新到最新版本的适用于 Linux 的 Windows 子系统。 --status 显示适用于 Linux 的 Windows 子系统状态。 --help 显示使用情况信息。 PS C:\Users\live> wsl --status 未安装适用于 Linux 的 Windows 子系统。可通过运行 “wsl.exe --install” 进行安装。有关详细信息，请访问 https://aka.ms/wslinstall

NOTE!!!!
wsl --status exit code is not 0!

Only Updated WSL

wsl --help has too much output, so ignore it.

PS C:\Users\live> wsl --status 默认版本: 2 当前计算机配置不支持 WSL1。若要使用 WSL1，请启用“Windows Subsystem for Linux”可选组件。当前计算机配置不支持 WSL2。请启用“虚拟机平台”可选组件，并确保在 BIOS 中启用虚拟化。通过运行以下命令启用“虚拟机平台”: wsl.exe --install --no-distribution 有关信息，请访问 https://aka.ms/enablevirtualization

NOTE!!!!
wsl --status exit code is 0!

Updated WSL + Only Enable Windows Subsystem for Linux

PS C:\Users\live> wsl --status 默认版本: 2 当前计算机配置不支持 WSL2。请启用“虚拟机平台”可选组件，并确保在 BIOS 中启用虚拟化。通过运行以下命令启用“虚拟机平台”: wsl.exe --install --no-distribution 有关信息，请访问 https://aka.ms/enablevirtualization

Updated WSL + Only Enable Virtual Machine Platform

PS C:\Users\live> wsl --status 默认版本: 2 当前计算机配置不支持 WSL1。若要使用 WSL1，请启用“Windows Subsystem for Linux”可选组件。

Updated WSL + Enable All

PS C:\Users\live> wsl --status 默认版本: 2

Due to differences between different WSL versions, my suggestion is to first check the user's WSL version. If it is below a certain version, upgrade it to the latest

@BlackHole1, thank you for your suggestions. However, I am hesitant to make the check too accurate as it augments the risk of false positives (mistakenly assuming that WSL is not installed). A false positive makes podman unusable, as podman init fails, and users can't turn off the WSL check. Given the fragility of the output parsing, we should stay on the safe side and accept a high rate of false negatives (mistakenly assuming that WSL is installed) to avoid any false positives.

Also, we should avoid preemptively updating WSL, even when it's unnecessary. Some company policies may block updating to the latest WSL version, and Podman trying to update at every machine init would be problematic. We do try to update, but only if we find WSL v1.

That said, the problem is far from solved. As you found out, when Windows is configured in a language other than English, we assume that WSL is installed. And, as you suggested, we may need to check the BIOS virtualization support. But considered the risks, a safer approach would be to accept that we may fail to find out that WSL is outdated or not present and, instead, improve the error messages shown when the VM installation fails with a clear explanation of the error and a suggestion on how to move forward.

BlackHole1 · 2025-03-12T03:07:20Z

Not going to lie, I kind of hate string-parsing error messages, but I'm assuming there isn't another way?

@mheon In fact, there is no way without applying for administrator privileges. Docker for Windows seems to register a service in Windows to avoid the need for administrator privileges, but I'm not sure.

Under non-administrator privileges, there are only two methods:

String parsing
Calling Windows’s private API

is it possible to begin to migrate support to only wsl2 ?

@baude My suggestion is to not support WSL1, but to only support WSL2.

BlackHole1 · 2025-03-12T03:14:20Z

There is still a problem:

When the BIOS does not have virtualization support enabled, podman machine init will still fail without notifying the user.

Maybe this can be achieved in another PR.

packit-as-a-service · 2025-03-12T17:32:28Z

[NON-BLOCKING] Packit jobs failed. @containers/packit-build please check. Everyone else, feel free to ignore.

Fixes containers#25234 Signed-off-by: Mario Loriedo <[email protected]>

Add a new target in winmake.ps1 to run unit tests and use use it in a new cirrus task. Fix machine_windows_test.go to make it work in CI machine. Add the `!windows` tag on tests files that fail on Windows. Signed-off-by: Mario Loriedo <[email protected]>

openshift-ci bot added the release-note-none label Mar 10, 2025

openshift-ci bot added the approved Indicates a PR has been approved by an approver from all required OWNERS files. label Mar 10, 2025

github-actions bot added the machine label Mar 10, 2025

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from 4d15366 to c2b5f5f Compare March 10, 2025 19:06

l0rd mentioned this pull request Mar 10, 2025

Automatic installation of WSL fails #25523

Open

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from c2b5f5f to 0460f8d Compare March 11, 2025 08:03

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from 0460f8d to 275c18e Compare March 11, 2025 13:06

Luap99 reviewed Mar 11, 2025

View reviewed changes

BlackHole1 suggested changes Mar 12, 2025

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l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from 615ae22 to 0d61125 Compare March 12, 2025 17:22

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from 0d61125 to 626b2d6 Compare March 12, 2025 17:43

Fix WSL installation check on Windows

87421d9

Fixes containers#25234 Signed-off-by: Mario Loriedo <[email protected]>

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch 3 times, most recently from 010a6b9 to 05d259d Compare March 13, 2025 10:37

l0rd force-pushed the fix-wsl-check branch from 05d259d to 874f52f Compare March 13, 2025 11:35

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Fix WSL checks and run unit tests in CI #25522

Fix WSL checks and run unit tests in CI #25522

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		Write-Host "`nRunning podman-machine unit tests"
		Run-Command ".\winmake localunit"

Fix WSL checks and run unit tests in CI #25522

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l0rd commented Mar 10, 2025 • edited Loading

Does this PR introduce a user-facing change?

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Init System

Only Updated WSL

Updated WSL + Only Enable Windows Subsystem for Linux

Updated WSL + Only Enable Virtual Machine Platform

Updated WSL + Enable All

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Updated WSL + Only Enable `Windows Subsystem for Linux`

Updated WSL + Only Enable `Virtual Machine Platform`

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