A short tutorial on getting Code-Server (VSCode in browser) running in WSL, and exposing it to the internets.

References:

This is going to be short and sweet, as I don’t have a lot of time to burn with this.

Prep:

  • Make sure that you have your DNS pointing to your external IP address (My router supports dyndns, so it can keep the DNS record up to date YMMV.)
  • If you are on a NAT, port-forward 80/443 to your Windows machine (specific to your router)
  • Make sure you have network-tools installed in WSL (sudo apt-get install network-tools )

Steps:

0. Install WSL support for systemd

Run the script and commands

git clone https://github.com/DamionGans/ubuntu-wsl2-systemd-script.git
cd ubuntu-wsl2-systemd-script/
bash ubuntu-wsl2-systemd-script.sh
# Enter your password and wait until the script has finished

Then restart the Ubuntu shell and try running systemctl systemctl

1. Install Code-Server

In WSL run the command to install code-server:
curl -fsSL https://code-server.dev/install.sh | sh

To enable it in systemd: sudo systemctl enable --now code-server@$USER

2. Install Caddy

Note: This will appear to fail to install the daemon as it’s built for systemd AFAICT. Don’t worry about it.

  echo "deb [trusted=yes] https://apt.fury.io/caddy/ /" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-fury.list
  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install caddy

3. Make Windows pass thru the ports.


I found a powershell script that makes this really easy. Create a network-forward-to-wsl.ps1 script :

 
If (-NOT ([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] "Administrator"))
{
  $arguments = "& '" + $myinvocation.mycommand.definition + "'"
  Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs -ArgumentList $arguments
  Break
}

# create the firewall rule to let in 443/80
if( -not ( get-netfirewallrule -displayname web -ea 0 ) {
  new-netfirewallrule -name web -displayname web -enabled true -profile any -action allow -localport 80,443 -protocol tcp 
}

$remoteport = bash.exe -c "ifconfig eth0 | grep 'inet '"
$found = $remoteport -match '\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}';

if( $found ){
  $remoteport = $matches[0];
} else{
  echo "The Script Exited, the ip address of WSL 2 cannot be found";
  exit;
}

$ports=@(80,443);

iex "netsh interface portproxy reset";
for( $i = 0; $i -lt $ports.length; $i++ ){
  $port = $ports[$i];
  iex "netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=$port connectport=$port connectaddress=$remoteport";
}
iex "netsh interface portproxy show v4tov4";

NOTE: You will have to run that elevated every time you restart WSL (WSL gets a random IP in an internal address)

4. Using your domain name (ie code.mydomain.com), replace /etc/caddy/Caddyfile with sudo to look like this:

  code.mydomain.com

  reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8080

When Caddy runs, it will automatically go and get an HTTPS certificate from Let’s Encrypt for that domain.
Make sure that you have your DNS pointing to your IP address

5. Get the password from your ~/.config/code-server/config.yaml file (it’s randomly generated)

or edit the file and set one

6. Browse to your domain name you set up.