WSL (13) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:559: execvpe(/bin/bash) failed: Permission denied

[ket000]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5011]

WSL Version

2.3.24.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.153.1-2

Distro Version

Oracle Linux 7.9

Other Software

When trying to launch any wsl distro it gives the below message
WSL (13) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:559: execvpe(/bin/bash) failed: Permission denied

wsl -u root works fine.

It seems that it can not navigate to /mnt/c folder

<3>WSL (36) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:551: chdir(/mnt/c/) failed 13
<3>WSL (36) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:559: execvpe(/bin/bash) failed: Permission denied

Repro Steps

Launch the distro by running
wsl

Expected Behavior

Able to access any distro using normal user.

Actual Behavior

<3>WSL (36) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:551: chdir(/mnt/c/) failed 13
<3>WSL (36) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:559: execvpe(/bin/bash) failed: Permission denied[WslLogs-2024-10-28_05-11-41.zip]

Diagnostic Logs

WslLogs-2024-10-28_05-11-41.zip

[github-actions]

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Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.3.24.0

[ket000]

Other issues does not seems to be applicable here. All of this was working till the last Month October update gor installed. I see below updates were installed.

PC Update KB5043130 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 10/8/2024 12:00:00 AM
PC Update KB5044029 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 10/10/2024 12:00:00 AM
PC Security Update KB5044273 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 10/10/2024 12:00:00 AM

[ket000]

I installed a new distro OracleLinux_8_7 and it worked fine. So it seems that something specific to older distros

wsl --list --verbose
NAME STATE VERSION

• OracleLinux_8_7 Running 2
  Legacy Stopped 1
  Ubuntu-18.04 Stopped 1
  Ubuntu Stopped 1
  OracleLinux_7_9 Stopped 2

Also I can login using root

wsl -d OracleLinux_7_9 -u root

but I can not do anything like becoming another user etc.

[benhillis]

It looks like the permissions on your distro might be messed up. Could you share the output of stat /bin/bash and cat /etc/passwd and the contents of /etc/wsl.conf if present?

[ket000]

[root@david-pc local]# stat /bin/bash
File: ‘/bin/bash’
Size: 964536 Blocks: 1888 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 830h/2096d Inode: 147794 Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
Access: 2024-10-29 19:32:32.313190494 -0400
Modify: 2021-11-23 12:44:46.000000000 -0500
Change: 2024-10-28 03:50:34.772463874 -0400
Birth: -
[root@david-pc local]# cat /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
adm:x:3:4:adm:/var/adm:/sbin/nologin
lp:x:4:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/sbin/nologin
sync:x:5:0:sync:/sbin:/bin/sync
shutdown:x:6:0:shutdown:/sbin:/sbin/shutdown
halt:x:7:0:halt:/sbin:/sbin/halt
mail:x:8:12:mail:/var/spool/mail:/sbin/nologin
operator:x:11:0:operator:/root:/sbin/nologin
games:x:12:100:games:/usr/games:/sbin/nologin
ftp:x:14:50:FTP User:/var/ftp:/sbin/nologin
nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin
systemd-network:x:192:192:systemd Network Management:/:/sbin/nologin
dbus:x:81:81:System message bus:/:/sbin/nologin
sshd:x:74:74:Privilege-separated SSH:/var/empty/sshd:/sbin/nologin
david:x:1000:1000::/home/david:/bin/bash
tss:x:59:59:Account used by the trousers package to sandbox the tcsd daemon:/dev/null:/sbin/nologin
oprofile:x:16:16:Special user account to be used by OProfile:/var/lib/oprofile:/sbin/nologin
[root@david-pc local]# cat /etc/wsl.conf
[automount]
enabled = true

[OneBlue]

Interesting, everything looks normal here. let's see which default uid this distribution is running with. What's the output of id -u and strace -f /bin/bash -c echo ok ?

[ket000]

# trying to launch without specifying the id lauches with default user and fails.
wsl -d OracleLinux_7_9
<3>WSL (40) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:551: chdir(/mnt/c/Users/KETANKUMAR) failed 13
<3>WSL (40) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:559: execvpe(/bin/bash) failed: Permission denied

#trying to start with root works
wsl -d OracleLinux_7_9 -u root
id -u
0

Can not run below as strace is not installed

strace -f /bin/bash -c echo ok

also I can not install strace

sudo yum install strace
sudo: unable to stat /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

[OneBlue]

@ket000: What if you try to launch without a shell ? Something like: wsl -d OracleLinux_7_9 id -u ?

Also, can you share the contents of /etc/fstab ?