Windows' WSL2 Now Allows Localhost Access, Custom Kernels

Microsoft released a new Windows 10 Insiders Preview Build on Friday that offers up more Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) enhancements.

One of the key improvements in this Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18945 is the ability to access local network services from the WSL2 installation via the Windows 10 host as localhost. Previously you've had to provide the local IP address of the WSL2 instance while now localhost will be correctly routed.

This latest build also allows the ability to start using global configuration options for WSL(2) and support for custom Linux kernels with WSL2. A kernel option within the WSL configuration file now allows specifying an alternative kernel implementation to be used in place of Microsoft's default WSL2 kernel.

More details on these improvements via the Microsoft developer blog.