Windows Terminal Ubuntu-20.04 | Fatal: can't open lock file /run/xtables.lock: Permission denied

[newcanopies]

Environment

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.867]
Ubuntu Focal 20.04
Linux version 5.4.72-microsoft-standard-WSL2 (oe-user@oe-host) (gcc version 8.2.0 (GCC)) #1 SMP Wed Oct 28 23:40:43 UTC 2020

Steps to reproduce

opening a Windows Terminal Ubuntu shell outputs following:

sysctl: permission denied on key "net.ipv4.ip_forward"
sysctl: permission denied on key "net.ipv4.conf.all.route_localnet"
Fatal: can't open lock file /run/xtables.lock: Permission denied
Fatal: can't open lock file /run/xtables.lock: Permission denied

What is the cause?
Thank you

[therealkenc]

Likely something has been inserted into one of your startup scripts (.bashrc or similar) which is calling sysctl(8) as an unprivileged user ('you'), and you do not have permission to modify net.ipv4.ip_forward etc. A big hammer fix would be to install a differently-named distribution Ubuntu-20.04 vs Ubuntu, or vise-versa, start it with wsl.exe -d <distro name> and confirm whether the unadulterated install starts without error.

[HomyeeKing]

hey @therealkenc , can you help me with this #6835?
I met some command not found issue

[newcanopies]

thank you @therealkenc

errors as below from running various programs, despite $ export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000

[newcanopies]

@therealkenc

gedit error inside Visual Studio Code

[therealkenc]

172.xx.xxx.1: command not found

You did a sudo 172.xx.xxx.1, which is not a command.

Back on WSL1 neither VSCode nor WindowsTerminal produced the below gedit error, is it WSL2 specific ?

Windows Terminal is not aware of gedit, and unrelated to Ubuntu. No idea what is going on there. VS Code works from a fresh install on WSL2 (all things being equal).

[therealkenc]

hope this is more clear of the actual command:

You had posted the actual command previously.

$ sudo $(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{ print $2 }')

Expands to:

$ sudo 172.28.186.1

And 172.28.186.1 is not a command.

Have you installed Win-KeX? If you have, you will get better eyeballs in the Kali Forums.

[therealkenc]

That line is in the correct format.

[therealkenc]

returns
Fatal: can't open lock file /run/xtables.lock: Permission denied

No, cat(1), grep(1), and awk(1) do not access /run/xtables.lock. You can try it from a bash prompt:

In conclusion, my WSL2 on Windows 19041, has a bug with User

You permission denied error on /run/xtables.lock is unrelated to #573.

How likely is it to be resolved with a new Distribution?

None of these lines will appear in an unadulterated .bashrc, ie a fresh install.

What software package has added these lines to your .bashrc?

[therealkenc]

If whoami does return my username,
should w return 0 users (which is the case) in my WSL2 bash, or show my username as logged in?

whoami(1) reads /etc/passwd. who(1) (aka w) reads /var/run/utmp. They are different commands that do different things.

login(1) myusername

$ sudo login -f yourusername

You permission denied error on /run/xtables.lock is unrelated to #573.