Access Disks from WSL2
Problem
I needed to run some scripts that will modify files on other drives (some are network shares that are mounted on a different computer) in my Windows Desktop. Since I'm using WSL2 Ubuntu, I tried accessing the files in the other drives.
After some researching online, I learned that Windows shared drives (SMB shares) aren't automatically seen my WSL2:
- WSL2 doesn't automatically inherit Windows network mappings
- WLS2 can't see mapped network shares unless explicity mapped
Solution
Install required packages in WSL2:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cifs-utils
Next, create a mount point:
sudo mkdir /mnt/share-books
If you have multiple network shares that you want to access in WSL2, create separate mount points for each.
Mount the share. This can be done using the the mount command, or simply add the entry in /etc/fstab to mount it permanently:
\\\\ComputerA\Books /mnt/share-books drvfs 0 0
Note that the \\ComputerA\Books refers to the shared folder name on ComputerA, which points to the disk or directory being shared from that machine.
Share Path Doesn't Exist
If you get this error:
mount: /mnt/share-path: special device \\\\ComputerA\sharepath does not exist.
<3>WSL (7444 - ) ERROR: UtilCreateProcessAndWait:688: /bin/mount failed with status 0x2000
You can check if the shared path actually exists using command prompt:
net view \\ComputerA
Sample output:
Shared resources at \\ComputerA
Share name Type Used as Comment
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lenovo Disk V:
Books Disk W:
Media Disk Z:
Programs Disk Y:
The command completed successfully.