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 make run, 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 on the Windows side. Installation can be done with the MSI installer.

Install Linux USB/IP tools

From WSL, install the user space tools for USB/IP and a database of USB hardware identifiers:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install linux-tools-virtual hwdata
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/usbip usbip $(command -v ls /usr/lib/linux-tools/*/usbip | tail -n1) 20

If the last command does not work, try:

$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/usbip usbip `ls /usr/lib/linux-tools/*/usbip | tail -n1` 20

Attach USB devices to WSL

Listing available devices

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell in Administrator mode and run:

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

This lists all connected USB devices and their attachment state.

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

$ lsusb

Attaching a device

To attach a USB device to WSL, run in the Windows Command Prompt:

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

For example:

C:\> usbipd wsl attach -b 10-1

After attaching, usbipd wsl list will show the device as Attached - Ubuntu (or your WSL distribution name), and lsusb inside WSL will show the device.

Detaching a device

To return the USB device back to Windows, either physically disconnect and reconnect it, or run in the Windows Command Prompt:

C:\> usbipd wsl detach -b <BUSID>