WSL2 USB Passthrough Guide

If you use WSL you cannot access USB devices directly because WSL does not natively support USB. If you try to load the binary into the target with the flash target, you will encounter errors about missing JTAG targets.

This guide explains how to pass USB devices from Windows to WSL2 so that JTAG debugging and flashing work from within WSL.

Requirements

Windows 10 or Windows 11 with all updates installed.
WSL2 with kernel version 5.10.60.1 or later.

You can check your kernel version from WSL with:

$ uname -a
Linux 5.15.90.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 ...

Install usbipd-win

Install the usbipd-win project (version 4.0.0 or later) on the Windows side. Installation can be done with the MSI installer, or from a PowerShell prompt with:

C:\> winget install usbipd

As of usbipd-win 4.0.0 you no longer need to install any client-side USB/IP tooling inside WSL — the Windows-side commands below are all that is required.

Attach USB devices to WSL

Listing available devices

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and run:

C:\> usbipd list
BUSID  VID:PID    DEVICE                                  STATE
10-1   0403:6014  USB Serial Converter                    Not shared
...

This lists all connected USB devices and their state.

From WSL, you can see currently attached USB devices with:

$ lsusb

Binding a device

Before a device can be attached to WSL it must be shared once with bind. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell in Administrator mode and run:

C:\> usbipd bind --busid <BUSID>

For example:

C:\> usbipd bind --busid 10-1

Binding is persistent and survives reboots, so this only needs to be done once per device. After binding, usbipd list shows the device as Shared.

Force binding

A plain bind leaves the device usable by Windows until it is attached to WSL, which is what you normally want. If a Windows driver holds the device and prevents it from being shared or attached, add --force to bind it anyway:

C:\> usbipd bind --force --busid <BUSID>

With --force the host can no longer use the device while it is bound. Only use it when a normal bind does not work.

Attaching a device

To attach a shared USB device to WSL, run in the Windows Command Prompt (no administrator privileges required):

C:\> usbipd attach --wsl --busid <BUSID>