> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.strongdm.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.strongdm.com/users/client/wsl.md).

# Windows Subsystem for Linux

The usage of StrongDM CLI with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is not supported. However, WSL1 often works well with StrongDM and WSL2 can often be made to work via manual configuration.

You can manually configure your `/etc/wsl.conf` to run systemd each time WSL starts, which will cause sdm to start:

```
[boot]
systemd=true
```

{% hint style="info" %}
If your version of WSL is not up to date, or not the Windows Store version, systemd may not run on WSL. If this is the case, you can also try configuring `sdm start` to run directly:

```
[boot]
  command="/etc/init.d/sdm start"
```

{% endhint %}

Additionally, when setting up WSL2, if you want to be able to connect to anything within WSL2 from Windows, you can `echo "export SDM_DOCKERIZED=true" >> ~/.bashrc"` so that `SDM_DOCKERIZED=true` is set any time the WSL2 instance is restarted.

These two adjustments may help with WSL2, but currently no version of WSL is officially supported.


---

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