Is it possible to use the nmcli in WSL and create a wifi hotspot?

Question

I am trying to setup a wifihotpot on my laptop in ubuntu 18 running as a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). (Terminal only) Following basic tutorials I wanted to run the following command:

~$ nmcli device wifi hotspot con-name my-hotspot ssid my-hotspot band bg password 123456
Error: Could not create NMClient object: Could not connect: No such file or directory.

Trying to start the networkmanager also fails:

~$ sudo service network-manager start
* Starting network connection manager NetworkManager    [ OK ]
~$ sudo service network-manager status
* NetworkManager is not running

I tried the networkManager after installing network-manager:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

Is there another way to create a wifi hotspot from Ubuntu running as a WSL? Or does it not have the right access to the windows host to pull it off?

Answer 1

at this time, I don't believe it is possible according to https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2438. They designed WSL to ignore calls to set interface properties. So nmcli and other commands that changes interface properties are not working, they marked it as a bug and will fix it in the future.

"WSL currently ignores the call (which was intentional at the time of the design) to set interface properties" - sunilmut

I hope to help in some way :)