Enable EBPF on WSL2

enable_ebpf_on_wsl2

By default, EBPF programs will not run on WSL2 due to required kernel modules missing. The following example error is an 
indication of this problem:
  modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod.c:586 kmod_search_moddep() could not open moddep file '/lib/modules/4.19.84-microso
  ft-standard/modules.dep.bin'
  modprobe: FATAL: Module kheaders not found in directory /lib/modules/4.19.84-microsoft-standard
  chdir(/lib/modules/4.19.84-microsoft-standard/build): No such file or directory

To fix this you need to rebuild the WSL2 kernel with the missing kernel modules. The below instructions are for Ubuntu 18.04 WSL2.

1. git clone https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel.git
2. cd WSL2-Linux-Kernel
3. sudo apt install flex bison build-essential libelf-dev libncurses-dev  libssl-dev
4. cp Microsoft/config-wsl .config
5. Add the kernel flags specified in https://github.com/iovisor/bcc/blob/master/INSTALL.md#kernel-configuration to .config
6. export KERNELRELEASE=4.19.84-microsoft-standard 
    NOTE: Make sure the version corresponds to the version of WSL2. Run: uname -a
7. make KERNELRELEASE=$KERNELRELEASE -j 4
8. make KERNELRELEASE=$KERNELRELEASE modules -j 4
9. sudo make KERNELRELEASE=$KERNELRELEASE modules_install 
10. (confirm you can see files under /lib/modules/$(uname -r))
11. sudo mount -t debugfs debugfs /sys/kernel/debug (for any apps that uses it since its not mounted by default)

Thank you for the nice and well structured guide, worked without any issues for me. 😃

Hi, @MetaT1an @satanshiro,

Have you tried using the following command

export KERNELRELEASE=$(uname -r)

to replace the original one in https://gist.github.com/MarioHewardt/5759641727aae880b29c8f715ba4d30f#file-enable_ebpf_on_wsl2-L15

For me, I can see the new content in /lib/modules/$(uname -r) after rebuilding the kernel.

The kernel KERNELRELEASE should have -WSL2 as the suffix.

@baoqger here is a hello-world i used, and it worked.

#!/usr/bin/python3
from bcc import BPF
from time import sleep

program = """
BPF_HASH(clones);

int hello_world(void *ctx) {
    u64 uid;
    u64 counter = 0;
    u64 *p;

    uid = bpf_get_current_uid_gid() & 0xFFFFFFFF;
    p = clones.lookup(&uid);
    if (p != 0){
        counter = *p;
    }

    counter++;
    clones.update(&uid, &counter);

    return 0;
}
"""

b = BPF(text=program)
clone = b.get_syscall_fnname("clone")
b.attach_kprobe(event=clone, fn_name="hello_world")
b.trace_print()

sleep(1000)

while True:
    sleep(2)
    s = ""
    if len(b["clones"].items()):
        for k,v in b["clones"].items():
            s += "ID {}: {}\t".format(k.value, v.value)
        print(s)
    else:
        print("No entries yet")

Here is a simpler one:

#!/usr/bin/python3  
from bcc import BPF

program = r"""
int hello(void *ctx) {
    bpf_trace_printk("Hello World!");
    return 0;
}
"""

b = BPF(text=program)
syscall = b.get_syscall_fnname("execve")
b.attach_kprobe(event=syscall, fn_name="hello")

b.trace_print()

then open a second terminal and run any linux command (ls, echo...etc) and you should see in the trace output Hello World

Can anyone give one hello-world demo to verify that bpf program can run on WSL2? In this way, we can troubleshoot that the issue is in bpf program aspect or wsl2 aspect?

Hi @baoqger, I have a mistake:

FAILED: load BTF from vmlinux: Unknown error -2make: *** [Makefile:1179: vmlinux] Error 255

Has that ever happened to you?

Hey, have you ever found a solution to this? I am having the same issue

Can anyone give one hello-world demo to verify that bpf program can run on WSL2? In this way, we can troubleshoot that the issue is in bpf program aspect or wsl2 aspect?

Hi @baoqger, I have a mistake:

FAILED: load BTF from vmlinux: Unknown error -2make: *** [Makefile:1179: vmlinux] Error 255

Has that ever happened to you?

Hey, habe you ever found a solution to this? I am having the same issue

Same :(

I have been trying to unfuck this for several days. This is a tough son of a bitch to solve. I have followed several guides and still FAILED: load BTF from vmlinux: Unknown error -22make: *** [Makefile:1179: vmlinux] Error 255

I successfully launched eBPF following the guide at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/community/content/wsl-user-msft-kernel-v6. However, I used Debian which required the installation of the following packages:

sudo apt install git python3 bc dwarves rsync

Additionally, to run the example Python code provided above, I had to install:

sudo apt install bpfcc-tools python3-bpfcc

Running it initially failed, but I managed to fix it by mounting debugfs with the command:

sudo mount -t debugfs debugfs /sys/kernel/debug

Finally, after opening a new Debian terminal, it printed the following:

b'           <...>-275     [004] d...1    91.948441: bpf_trace_printk: Hello World!'
b'            bash-276     [007] d...1    91.950385: bpf_trace_printk: Hello World!'
b'           <...>-277     [007] d...1    94.875099: bpf_trace_printk: Hello World!'

@deadash thank you!

It finally worked even after I tried several guides and got errors every time. I typed usbip and the menu appeared. I got my device to forward to the VM but I cant connect it to WSL1. I can only get WSL1 to work on the VM so im thinking about trying this with rasberrypi instead

Hi, @MetaT1an @satanshiro,

Have you tried using the following command

export KERNELRELEASE=$(uname -r)

to replace the original one in https://gist.github.com/MarioHewardt/5759641727aae880b29c8f715ba4d30f#file-enable_ebpf_on_wsl2-L15

For me, I can see the new content in /lib/modules/$(uname -r) after rebuilding the kernel.

The kernel KERNELRELEASE should have -WSL2 as the suffix.

Thank you! It works!

I wrote complete guide in my blog

https://massoudasadiblog.blogspot.com/2024/07/ebpf-on-wsl2-kernel-version-6x-ubuntu.html?m=1