Windows WSL2 and LUKS

wsl-luks.md

If you have a LUKS-encrypted partition on another disk, it's easy to mount it inside WSL.

List your disks:

> wmic diskdrive list brief

Mount the whole disk inside WSL (using --bare so WSL doesn't attempt to mount it automatically):

> wsl --mount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 --bare

Now inside WSL, check the device name of the mounted disk (something like /dev/sd*):

$ dmesg | tail

Open the LUKS device (it'll prompt for your passphrase):

$ sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdd3 my-encrypted-disk

And mount it somewhere:

$ sudo mount /dev/mapper/my-encrypted-disk /somewhere

Avoid mounting on /mnt because that's usually used by WSL itself to mount your C: drive.

I getting the following error when attempting to mount my USB drive:

wsl --mount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE4 --bare

The system cannot find the drive specified.
Error code: Wsl/Service/AttachDisk/0x8007000f

You haven't run into this? There's some discussion here → microsoft/WSL#9290, but doesn't seem helpful.

I'm able to mount and access the encrypted disk within Linux but the mounted folder shows as empty within Windows Explorer. wslview also errors when trying to open a file within the encrypted disk.

@ghost thanks for the warning. I made sure to back up

@nhooyr did you figure out any way to open the folder withing Windows Explorer?

@nhooyr, @AymaneHrouch looks like /somewhere needs to be under /mnt/wsl/ such as /mnt/wsl/MyExtDisk. I can access the drive using Windows Explorer by accessing \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\mnt\wsl\MyExtDisk.
However, the directory under /mnt/wsl/ will be cleared after the reboot, so you'd need to create the directory each time... I'd like to know if there is a better way to do it.