78

I was trying to use an ssh instance and I received the following error, which is odd since I tried to change the permission using chmod, but that didn't seem to work as permissions were still 777:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Permissions 0777 for 'privkey.pem' are too open.
It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.
This private key will be ignored.
Load key "privkey.pem": bad permissions
Permission denied (publickey).

I opened git bash and was able to SSH into my instance with no problem, and permissions were not 777 as well.

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3
  • 1
    So which update? What happens if you roll it back?
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 19:11
  • 1
    Similar to this superuser.com/q/1321072/726810
    – Biswapriyo
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 21:11
  • 2
    For everyone not able to get the wsl.conf options working, you have to restart the LxssManager service. Closing the WSL instances is not good enough sometimes.
    – Brain2000
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 13:29

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
114

If you're referencing files in the Windows file system, they do not, by default, retain Linux permissions. However, there's a way to enable that. Edit or create (using sudo) /etc/wsl.conf and add the following:

[automount]
options = "metadata"

Shut down all WSL instances and restart an instance, and any chmod changes are now retained.

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7
  • 7
    Does not work for me. I did exactly as you suggest, but permission set using chmod still do not reflect when doing a ls -al. Strangely enough (and this was also the case prior to doing this change), certain chmod values work while others don't. For e.g, 0600 has no effect but 0400 changes it to -r-xr-xr-x.
    – Ash
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 6:19
  • @Ash make sure your WSL permissions doesn't contradict the Windows permission. E.g. if you mark a file read-only in Windows, it won't be writable in WSL either, as the Windows permissions overrules the WSL permissions.
    – nilskp
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:10
  • @nilskp The file is not marked Readonly under Windows and the Windows permissions for it are Full Control for SYSTEM, Administrators, and the user. If Windows permissions overrule, then by that very statement, doesn't it mean that any chmod done via WSL won't be observed?
    – Ash
    Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 0:54
  • 1
    @Ash, take a look at the options in Basil A's answer. It's possible you need one or both of those masks. I don't know enough about the issue to resolve this.
    – nilskp
    Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 23:38
  • @nilskp Please take a look at my comment to Basil A's answer, which I posted at the same time as my original comment to this answer. In short, neither approach (yours or Basil A's) works for me. Possibly because the file in question for me in under /mnt ; probably why erobertc's answer worked for me.
    – Ash
    Commented Jan 30, 2019 at 0:20
31

The correct way to handle this:

  1. Create /etc/wsl.conf with the following:

    [automount]
enabled  = true
root     = /mnt/
options  = "metadata,umask=22,fmask=11"

    To understand the meaning of each parameter above, please refer to this article on MSDN

  2. Close all WSL terminals and open a new one

  3. Restart your machine (as indicated by some comments)

Now you are all set; changing permissions of a file in Windows from /mnt/c/ will be reflected, and mounted, correctly within WSL on startup via the metadata option.

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6
  • 4
    Does not work for me. I did exactly as you suggest, but permission set using chmod still do not reflect when doing a ls -al. Strangely enough (and this was also the case prior to doing this change), certain chmod values work while others don't. For e.g, 0600 has no effect but 0400 changes it to -r-xr-xr-x.
    – Ash
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 6:18
  • fmask must be set to 111. See devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/chmod-chown-wsl-improvements
    – Arunprasad Rajkumar
    Commented Apr 22, 2019 at 9:09
  • 1
    This answer works well for me. @ArunprasadRajkumar, fmask should not be 111 - using this removes the executable flag from all files by default (which is noted in the article that you link to) and is probably not what you want. Using fmask=11 uses executable flags from the file system by default so works well.
    – zelanix
    Commented May 19, 2019 at 10:22
  • To clarify my previous comment, fmask=111 removes execution rights from all files for owner, group, and anonymous users. fmask=11 removes execution rights for group and anonymous users only, while using the execution right from the file system for owner (this is probably what you want, and works well with git). umask=22 removes write rights from files and directories for group and anonymous users.
    – zelanix
    Commented May 19, 2019 at 10:46
  • 6
    This worked for me ONLY after I restarted my machine.
    – K F
    Commented Jul 29, 2020 at 2:07
26

Is the private key on your Windows filesystem (under /mnt/)? You can't modify the permissions of files on Windows's filesystem using chmod on Bash on Ubuntu on Windows. You'll have to copy the private key to your WSL home directory (~) and do it there.

Some discussion here: https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/81

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9
  • 13
    There are at least 3 pages to that discussion. You really should quote the information you feel is relevant to the author.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 18:23
  • 1
    @iii So what changed recently? Did you install any windows updates? Did you change any config files? Please edit and update your question.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 18:53
  • 2
    @iii - Which update? Your question makes no reference to the fact it was working previously. Your question also makes no reference that you recently installed an update. I disagree with this answer, because the link is from before WSL was modified (I believe), to support what you are trying to do. Which is the reason I was pressing the author to elaborate thier answer
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 19:09
  • 3
    @Ramhound, the relevant information from that discussion is paraphrased in my answer, I just added that link as a reference source. The relevant information is in the first reply there. I didn't know that the questioner only encountered this problem after a Windows update, but they haven't said whether the key is on the Windows filesystem, so I still think that's the most likely explanation until they indicate otherwise.
    – erobertc
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 21:30
  • 2
    Not sure why people are getting upset about this answer even though it presents the truth (if you think otherwise about the /mnt restriction, point to the relevant documentation in your comment). I encountered the exact same behaviour; permissions for files under the /mnt directory could not be changed using chmod. So I had to move my ssh keys to my /home/<user> directory, and then chmod worked as expected.
    – Ash
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 6:12
10

I created an alias that gets loaded in my ~/.bashrc file and allows to unmount/remount the C:/ drive in the /mnt/c/ folder with `"metadata" permissions.

alias win-chmod="cd ~ && sudo umount /mnt/c && sudo mount -t drvfs C: /mnt/c -o metadata && cd -"

This allows me to only enable chmod when I need it, preventing unwanted changes to the mounted file system. It's just a matter of invoking

$ ls -l | grep myfile
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root          0 Dec 12 16:34 myfile.txt
$ win-chmod
/mnt/c/Users/myself/Documents/myfolder
$ chmod 666 myfile.txt
$ ls -l | grep myfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root          0 Dec 12 16:34 myfile.txt
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3
  • 2
    Thank you! This is the only thing that worked for me after hours of research
    – AlexT
    Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 5:15
  • 2
    +1 for ingenuity. But the above solution by @Basil also worked, after rebooting (required)
    – Brent Faust
    Commented Feb 2, 2021 at 22:18
  • worked for me, thanks
    – user1007727
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 13:28
4

I would like to add to @basilA's answer, because it's not that easy to create a /etc/wsl.conf file, especially since I kept getting:

-bash: /etc/conf.wsl: Permission denied

even if I ran commands with sudo. Anyway, the trick is to change to the root user.

So, from a regular command prompt, type the following commands:

  • wsl
  • sudo su
  • cat > /etc/wsl.conf << EOF
[automount]
options = "metadata"
EOF
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1
  • 1
    The sudo su bit was what was missing from all the explanations I'd seen.
    – jdunning
    Commented Jul 16, 2022 at 1:44
3

Copy the key file to anywhere in the Linux Sub system then change the permission and connect.

cp /mnt/path/to/key/file /home/$USER/

chmod 400 /home/$USER/key_file_name.pem

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1
  • nothing above worked for me; thanks for this!!
    – awerchniak
    Commented Jun 12, 2022 at 19:47
0

I had the issue that my files were stored on an external hard drive which happend to be formated in exFAT. Well you cannot change permissions for files on any FAT and if you try it may end in weird results. So you have to copy your files to a hard drive formated in NTFS and try again. (btw: there is also no security tab in the file properties on FAT)

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  • 1
    As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Sep 30, 2022 at 14:42
0

NONE of those answers worked for me but

  1. opening a Windows PowerShell Terminal with Administration rights and then
  2. opening an Ubuntu tab and
  3. executing chmod 666 /path/to/the/file/I/want (feel free to change permissions number)

did the trick

how to open the terminal with admin rights
(1. right-click, 2. right-click, 3. left-click)

good luck with this annoying issue, hope this will fix it

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-1

You cannot give 777 permission to *.pem file

Use chmod 400 filename.pem

it will fixed the issue

in some system you can use chmod 600 filename.pem

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2
  • 2
    This doesn't answer the question.
    – Toto
    Commented Sep 21, 2021 at 8:20
  • When i face the same situation i just copy the pem file in window linux subsystem and run this command it resolved my issue
    – Rockinroll
    Commented Sep 22, 2021 at 9:26

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