How can I connect to WSL2 distro?

[palcoo42]

Hello,

I have installed Theia IDE in Windows and I have tried to connect to my existing WSL2 distribution. However I did not found an option for this in "Open a Remote Window". Asfaik this option is provided by Microsoft extension in VS Code and I could not found it in Theia extensions. Is there a option how can I connect to WSL2 from Windows Theia IDE installation?

Thanks in advance

[palcoo42]

Print screen of "Open a Remote Window"

[dscain]

Thanks for the information. How to configure a private key? Usually I just add all to my .ssh\config, but it seems it is not being picked up by Theia. Also, I cannot see additional debugging information in the Output window. I am using Theia 1.51.0 installed on Windows 11 trying to connect to Ubuntu machines. Thanks in advance for the support!

[msujew]

Hey @palcoo42,

Theia currently only supports to work on a remote machine via SSH or to run your workspace in a dev-container. WSL2 is not supported yet.

Each of those features is fairly complicated from a technical perspective and none of the contributing parties have communicated interest in supporting WSL specificially.

[palcoo42]

Thanks for a reply, unfortunately WSL2 is a must have for me, so for now I am stick with vs-code

[nickger]

Following this I could run the command "connect to host" with my WSL credentials, it did something for quite a while but then opened a Theia instance on the host machine. @msujew is WSL still not supported even through SSH?

[jonah-iden]

I havn't gotten around to testing this in depth. It just seems that wsl ssh connections do have a lot of problem curently

[jonah-iden]

I started implementing native WSL support for theias remote feature. Here is the draft Pr . Feel free to test it out if you have time. It's very basic still and has some issues but its a start.

[jonah-iden]

Btw connect current window to host should wokr. It seems there is currently an issue with ports not being set correctly when opening a new window to connect to an ssh server

[nickger]

@jonah-iden How can I try what you've done? Do I need to download the source code and compile? I am not familiar with npm and such...

[jonah-iden]

unfortunately yes you would have to build it from source.
You would need to have node (best would be probably version 20) installed.
Then just clone the branch from the PR, exeute npm i and then npm npm run build:electron then you should be able to start the application with npm run start:electron

[MuratOzsoyler]

"connect current window to host should wokr" Unfortunately result is same: Could not open SSH connection. All configured authentication methods failed.

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On Fri, May 2, 2025, 16:46 Jonah Iden ***@***.***> wrote: Btw connect current window to host should wokr. It seems there is currently an issue with ports not being set correctly when opening a new window to connect to an ssh server — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#13857 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADBURP3CU7VTSUCBM45IRLT24NZKJAVCNFSM6AAAAABZXIRFYKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTGMBRGQ2DMMY> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jonah-iden]

sorry i should have specified this was about nickger issue. Havn't tested the public key one yet

[jonah-iden]

Are you sure you setup SSH correctly in your WSL instance? I just tested it locally with my public key in the authorized_keys in my ubuntu distro and it worked fine for me

[MuratOzsoyler]

I can connect from PowerShell CLI using ssh command. ssh-agent is running in Windows side and my private key is ssh-added. My Windows and WSL Archlinux instance is updated recently so the software versions should be the latest. Could it be a configuration issue? Can I get SSH connection log of Theia?

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On Fri, May 2, 2025, 17:22 Jonah Iden ***@***.***> wrote: Are you sure you setup SSH correctly in your WSL instance? I just tested it locally with my public key in the authorized_keys in my ubuntu distro and it worked fine for me — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#13857 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADBURP63GVO3B2L33BP35NT24N5UHAVCNFSM6AAAAABZXIRFYKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTGMBRGQ4DMOA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jonah-iden]

You could try jjust launching theia from a terminal. That should give you at least some output. There is not a lot of logging built into the ssh feature. what you could try would be to build theia from source and debug it yourself. I could imagine you are not using a default format for your key maybe? Default currently include

        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_DSA = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_dsa');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_ECDSA = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_ecdsa');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_RSA = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_rsa');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_ED25519 = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_ed25519');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_XMSS = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_xmss');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_ECDSA_SK = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_ecdsa_sk');
        const PATH_SSH_CLIENT_ID_ED25519_SK = path.join(homeDir, '.ssh', '/id_ed25519_sk');

or the key has to be in your ssh config file. But i actually don't see the parsing in the code right now. Maybe thats acutally a still missing feature

[jonah-iden]

should you try to debug it yourself, take a look at the packages\remote\src\electron-node\ssh\remote-ssh-connection-provider.ts:142 file, specifcly the `establishSSHConnection()´ method

[jonah-iden]

Btw the WSL support is working now and should hopefully make it into the next release