Can I ssh from WSL in visual studio code?

Question

I am using WSL on windows 10 to program, and recently discovered that VS code can be used to edit programs through SSH.

However, I normally SSH into my university's computers through WSL so i can access the files on those systems and use their GPUs.

Is there any way to SSH into WSL using vscode, and then ssh into my universities systems, and have access to their resources and filesystems from with within vscode?

Answer 1

You can create ssh.bat file under windows with the content:

C:\Windows\system32\wsl.exe ssh %*

And than set VS Code setting "remote.SSH.path" to point to that bat file.
You’ll have the same ssh configuration and credentials in VS Code as you have in WSL.

Answer 2

If writing C:\Windows\system32\wsl.exe ssh %* in an ssh.bat file mostly works but gives you issues where your ~/.bashrc is not sourced, replace the command with

C:\Windows\system32\wsl.exe bash -ic 'ssh %*'

This tweak runs the ssh command in an interactive bash shell, which sources your ~/.bashrc. Using the above fixed an issue I had with the Ubuntu ssh-agent not forwarding keys on VSCode remote terminal.