How do I access the WSL Linux file system from Windows?

I found that static files served from a Rails application running in /home/pupeno/projectx take more or less half as much time than the ones served from /mnt/c/Users/pupeno/projectx. It's almost acceptable. I tried webrick and puma (as well as passenger and unicorn, which don't work yet).

So, if I'm going to host my source code in /home/pupeno, how do I access from Windows applications such as RubyMine?

For the record, this is the application being served from the Windows file system:

and this is the Linux file system:

6 Answers

PM for Windows Command-Line here:

Thus far, accessing Linux files from Windows has been unsupported. To understand why, please read this post:

However, as of Windows 10 build 1903 (March 2019), we (finally!) exposed your distros' filesystems to Windows!

To learn more, please read this post:

Look forward to hearing how you get on with this feature. If you find any problems, please file issues on the WSL GitHub repo here: .

WSL mounts Windows partitions under /mnt. For example, you can modify files in c:\work on the mounted Windows filesystem by referencing them as /mnt/c/work.

Windows apps (cmd, file manager, etc), can access files in WSL in read-only mode by prepending with %LocalAppData%\lxss. Copying a file from the Windows filesystem to the WSL directories renders it unreadable, with a cryptic general I/O error. Files created in %LocalAppData%\lxss from Windows are not visible to WSL. Files created from WSL can be modified in Windows, and the modified file can subsequently be accessed by WSL.

On Windows 10 Creators Update, I use SFTP NetDrive to mount the WSL filesystem into windows as as a network drive.

There are some Window sshFS ports that'll achieve the same thing.

You'll need to start the ssh daemon via sudo service ssh start.

With Windows 10 version 1903 and later, WSL filesystems are available in Windows via the \\wsl$ mount. Either browse there manually or launch explorer.exe from a WSL path:

$ cd /home/me $ explorer.exe . 

If you have an existing WSL installation and you upgrade to Windows 1903 you may find that the \\wsl$ mount doesn't work. Some users have found that disabling and re-enabling WSL fixes the issue.

In PowerShell:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux # Reboot when prompted Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux # Reboot when prompted 

Disabling and re-enabling WSL didn't seem to harm my existing Ubuntu installation but it's probably worth backing up anything you want to save just in case.

fire the CLI command explorer.exe \\wsl$ in Windows powershell/cmd

You can easily access, read and write files from WSL Linux file system to Windows and vice-versa by simply navigating to the file location :

C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs

Hope this helped you!!