Enable systemd in WSL2 Debian 11

This guide will help you install systemd to run as normal under WSL2 Debian. This will allow services like microk8s, docker, cockpit and many more to just work during a WSL session. Note: this was tested on Windows 10 Build 21H2, running Debian 11 in WSL2.

• To enable systemd under WSL we require a tool called systemd-genie
• Download install-sg.sh to a temporary location /tmp:

cd /tmp

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wget ca-certificates

wget --content-disposition \
"https://gist.githubusercontent.com/bnhf/ec85f1f91e3096f1499f995dd60b2097/raw/53a4f8e03b8c0073f4ddf17352cd157e4bba1b60/install-sg.sh"

• Make it executable:

sudo chmod +x install-sg.sh

• Run the script:

./install-sg.sh

• Exit the WSL terminal and shutdown the WSL env:

wsl --shutdown

• To open a new WSL terminal with systemd enabled, run:

wsl genie -s

• Prove that it works

sudo systemctl status time-sync.target

Here’s the contents of the script you’d be downloading with the above wget command:

#! /usr/bin/env bash
set -e

# change these if you want
DEBIAN_VERSION="11"
GENIE_VERSION="2.2"

GENIE_FILE="systemd-genie_${GENIE_VERSION}_amd64"
GENIE_FILE_PATH="/tmp/${GENIE_FILE}.deb"
GENIE_DIR_PATH="/tmp/${GENIE_FILE}"

function installDebPackage() {
  # install repackaged systemd-genie
  sudo dpkg -i "${GENIE_FILE_PATH}"

  rm -rf "${GENIE_FILE_PATH}"
}

function downloadDebPackage() {
  rm -f "${GENIE_FILE_PATH}"

  pushd /tmp

  wget --content-disposition \
    "https://github.com/arkane-systems/genie/releases/download/v${GENIE_VERSION}/systemd-genie_${GENIE_VERSION}_amd64.deb"

  popd
}

function installDependencies() {
  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
  
  wget --content-disposition \
    "https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/${DEBIAN_VERSION}/packages-microsoft-prod.deb"

  sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
  rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb
 
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install -y \
    daemonize \
    dotnet-runtime-5.0 \
    systemd-container \
    policykit-1 \
    python3 \
    python3-pip \
    python3-psutil \
    gawk

  sudo rm -f /usr/sbin/daemonize
  sudo ln -s /usr/bin/daemonize /usr/sbin/daemonize
}

function main() {
  installDependencies

  downloadDebPackage

  installDebPackage
}

main

Credit to Matthew Snoddy (@djfdyuruiry on GitHub) for the original script written for WSL2 Ubuntu and a previous version of systemd-genie.