Cannot access web app running on WSL from a Windows-hosted client (browser)

[brunoborges]

Describe the bug

Open a WSL terminal on Windows.
Create a sample app using the quickstart/archetypes.
Run mvn quarkus:dev.
Try to access the app.

Expected behavior

Be able to see the expected output of the quickstart.

Actual behavior

404

How to Reproduce?

As described.

Output of uname -a or ver

No response

Output of java -version

No response

GraalVM version (if different from Java)

No response

Quarkus version or git rev

No response

Build tool (ie. output of mvnw --version or gradlew --version)

No response

Additional information

No response

[geoand]

Thanks for reporting.

@rsvoboda do you have a Windows machine so you can verify this?

[rsvoboda]

I have Windows VM, but it's without nested virtualization so I can't really check WSL 2 now.

I will ask my wife to borrow me her Windows laptop when she gets home ;)

[geoand]

Thanks!

[rsvoboda]

Good news, I have managed to boot into Boot Camp based Windows with enabled Virtualization thanks to the trick mentioned in https://superuser.com/questions/717421/how-to-enable-hardware-virtualization-on-a-macbook

In WSL 2 I was able to run Quarkus sample app from code.quarkus in dev mode. Application is not accessible from Windows-hosted browser because the default host is localhost / 127.0.0.1 and wsl acts as fast VM.

Running Maven command with -Dquarkus.http.host=0.0.0.0 solves the trouble and I can access the app from browser.

[geoand]

Thanks @rsvoboda!

Interesting how this seems to be the opposite of #12246...

[famod]

0.0.0.0 is the way to go when running in a WSL2 distribution, using it myself that way.

The other issue seems to be about running "natively" on Windows, not in WSL2.

[brunoborges]

@famod have you tried with this setting as a Maven property in the Pom?

[famod]

@brunoborges we have it in application-dev.yaml. It was a team decision that it's ok for everyone like that, even though only I am using WSL, the others are running on Windows natively.

But you should be able to set it via Maven, too.

[brunoborges]

I think I tried to set it via Maven in the pom, and did not see success. That's why I'm asking you to test as well.

Granted, my project was an older Quarkus, that then I manually updated to the latest version. So maybe I missed something.

[famod]

Right, just setting property <quarkus.http.host>0.0.0.0</quarkus.http.host> doesn't work, haven't checked why.

But you can either set property <jvm.args>-Dquarkus.http.host=0.0.0.0</jvm.args> or set <jvmArgs>-Dquarkus.http.host=0.0.0.0</jvmArgs> in the configuration section of the quarkus-maven-plugin.

[brunoborges]

Isn't this because the Maven plugin is not passing along Maven properties to Quarkus as system properties?

This sounds like a quite useful enhancement.

[geoand]

Quarkus does read properties from Maven, however it only applies them to build time configuration, i.e. configuration that cannot change at runtime - which is not the case for quarkus.http.host.

[famod]

Ah, right! ⬆️ 👍

So it seems we should close this issue.
Or can we improve something on the documentation side of things?

[geoand]

Or can we improve something on the documentation side of things?

Yeah, I think we can likely improve on that. Or maybe even try to detect if we are running in WSL (not sure that's possible) and display a warning message if quarkus.http.host is set to localhost?

UPDATE:

It seems to be possible to detect if the process is running in WSL, see https://stackoverflow.com/a/61036356/2504224

[famod]

Not sure if a warning is too invasive. Nobody stops you from running a desktop in WSL, with a browser.
So if we choose to log something it should be INFO instead.

But logging is actually better than extending the docs, RTFM you know. 😉

[brunoborges]

Isn't it better if you just go with the expected behavior of the developer?

If the setting is in the pom, use it. If it is inside WSL, deploy to 0.0.0.0 by default. Document the default behavior.

[geoand]

#22956 makes Quarkus automatically lister on 0.0.0.0 for WSL environments.
@rsvoboda would you be able to test it please?

Thanks

[famod]

IIRC, a long time ago there was a change to not bind to 0.0.0.0 because of security reasons?
Anyway, I think it's alright to use it by default like that.

[geoand]

Yeah, this is only for WSL

[rsvoboda]

ok, booting to windows

[rsvoboda]

PR approved, fresh Quarkus build on Windows machine took ages :/

[geoand]

Thanks!

[famod]

fresh Quarkus build on Windows machine took ages :/

Better build in WSL dist whenever you can.

[rsvoboda]

Better build in WSL dist whenever you can.

I had my Windows machine with almost nothing in .m2/repository/ so the download of artifacts took quite a long time.
And I was building in Windows, but I realized that the local maven repo is different in WSL and I miss 999-SNAPSHOT artifacts :) I got through that using -Dmaven.repo.local=. Yeah, it can be tricky to switch between Windows cmd/powershell and WSL ...

[brunoborges]

Any tip on how to configure <quarkus.http.host>0.0.0.0</quarkus.http.host> in the pom.xml? Maybe in the quarkus plugin?

[geoand]

Something like:

            <plugin>
                <groupId>${quarkus.platform.group-id}</groupId>
                <artifactId>quarkus-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${quarkus.platform.version}</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>build</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                     <systemProperties>
                        <quarkus.http.host>0.0.0.0</quarkus.http.host>
                     </systemProperties>
               </configuration>
            </plugin>

should work, although I haven't tried it.

If that does not work, let me know and I'll try it out tomorrow

[famod]

Or like I have posted 2 days ago: #22887 (comment)