Upgrade from WSL 1 to WSL 2 in Windows 10 to fix Docker

This post was most recently updated on April 28th, 2022.

2 min read.

Okay – another one of the topics that I’m explaining probably more to myself than whoever’s reading this later. But that’s why I write this blog, so please bear with me. 🙂

Anyway, onto the actual issue at hand!

I was configuring Docker on WSL on my Windows laptop for development purposes. That’s supposed to be easy – install WSL, install a distribution, install Docker, switch it to using WSL, fire up your WSL command prompt and run any Docker commands there (or deploy from wherever you’re developing your stuff).

But… It doesn’t always work like that.

Problem

Table of Contents

If you get an error like the one below:

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:/var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

I’m sure that this can be caused by quite a few different reasons, but in my case, the cause was clear. My distros were originally created in WSL 1 instead of 2. And hey, you might have the same issue, so read on!

You can verify this by starting your wsl and running this below to query your kernel version:

uname -r

It should show something like the below for WSL 2:

uname -r
5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2

Or by just running this in PowerShell or cmd:

wsl --list --verbose

If you get something like this:

How to query your Windows Subsystem for Linux version in command line? — How to query your Windows Subsystem for the Linux version in the command line?

You need to update to version 2. Let’s take a look at how to do that!

Solution

Well, this is actually very straightforward. You’ll need to run this in PowerShell or cmd:

wsl --set-version [distroname] 2

A sample, in line with my screenshot above, would be like this:

wsl --set-version Ubuntu-20.04 2

You need to run it for each distro you have (and want to update).

That’s it! Hope it applies to your case as well – let me know in the comments section below!

References

WSL version differences: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions

Author
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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Azure.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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