Running a development server on WSL2 and connecting devices to the server via port forwarding on the local network. 🚀

Daniel Corona ⚡ — Tue, 16 May 2023 23:09:54 +0000

🌐 Connecting to WSL2 server via local network

❓ Are you unable to connect to your WSL server from another computer or your mobile device on the same network?

(Running my local server in WSL2 with Next.js/CRA and being unable to access it from other devices on the local network.)

⚙ Follow the steps below and you should be able to access the WSL2 server through other devices on the same local network.

▶ Step 1

On the Windows PowerShell or cmd, use the command ipconfig, and search for IPv4 Address to find your Windows IP address.

▶ Step 2

Open the port on your machine in order to access it over your network. Run the command bellow in Windows PowerShell as admin:



netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Allowing LAN connections" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=3000

In my case, the port that I allowed is 3000.
(Change according to the port you want to allow -> localport=PORT_TO_ALLOW)

▶ Step 3

Still in Windows PowerShell, pass the port that the app is listening on to the corresponding port within WSL. Follow the command below to do this:



netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=3000 listenaddress=YOUR_IPV4_ADDRESS connectport=3000 connectaddress=$($(wsl hostname -I).Trim());

listenport: The port that Windows will listen to.
listenaddress: The address that your Windows will listen to (finded on step 1).
connectport: The port that your Linux distribution through WSL2 will listen to.
connectaddress: The public IP of your Linux WSL2 instance.

📝 (Note that the Hyper-V IP changes every time Windows reboots, so the public IP in WSL2 also changes). To avoid hardcoding due to updating the WSL IP every reboot, pass the $($(wsl hostname -I).Trim()) to dynamically put the IP of the WSL.

🔥 Finally, to see if everything is working properly, write the command:
netsh inteface portproxy show v4t0v4

If everything is fine, you should see something like:

Now, you can access your server using WINDOWS_IP:PORT_ALLOWED
🤓 In my case, 192.168.18.217:3000.