Make IP address of WSL2 static

The IP address of a WSL2 machine cannot be made static, however it can be determined using wsl hostname -I

Based on this I was able to create the following powershell script that will start sshd on my WSL machine and route traffic to it.

wsl.exe sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start
$wsl_ip = (wsl hostname -I).trim()
Write-Host "WSL Machine IP: ""$wsl_ip"""
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=22 connectport=22 connectaddress=$wsl_ip

I added the following to my sudoers file via visudo to avoid needing a password to start sshd

%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /etc/init.d/ssh

Finally, from an administrative powershell terminal, I scheduled my script to run at startup

$trigger = New-JobTrigger -AtStartup -RandomDelay 00:00:15
Register-ScheduledJob -Trigger $trigger -FilePath C:\route_ssh_to_wsl.ps1 -Name RouteSSHtoWSL

This solution helped me to set up a static ip of my wsl, try:

Run this on your windows host machine:

netsh interface ip add address "vEthernet (WSL)" 192.168.99.1 255.255.255.0

And this on your wsl linux machine:

sudo ip addr add 192.168.99.2/24 broadcast 192.168.99.255 dev eth0 label eth0:1;

But to keep this IP after the rebooting your sytem you need to set up those commands in the startup scrip.

No need to use scripts to get the ip, just use Openssh server for windows and change the default shell from c:/system32/cmd.exe to c:/system32/bash.exe:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-server/administration/openssh/openssh_server_configuration

Using wsl and wsl2 at the same time caused problems for me. Could not get correct wsl hostname from the powershell command:

wsl hostname -I

Building on the answer from Nick, I needed to forward web 80 and 443, along with some other app ports.

ubuntu2004.exe -c "sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start"
$wsl_ip = (ubuntu2004.exe -c "ifconfig eth0 | grep 'inet '").trim().split()| where {$_}
$regex = [regex] "\b(?:(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.){3}(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\b"

$ip_array = $regex.Matches($wsl_ip) | %{ $_.value }

$wsl_ip = $ip_array[0]

Write-Host "WSL Machine IP: ""$wsl_ip"""

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=443 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=443 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=8080 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=8080 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=80 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=3001 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=3001 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=2222 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=2222 connectaddress=$wsl_ip
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=22 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=22 connectaddress=$wsl_ip