[Bug 2115536] Re: [SRU] Allow building WSL images of Focal in the new format

Wed Jan 21 17:53:07 UTC 2026

TEST RESULTS: 
The image tested successfully for both building (1) and new installations (1.A).

------

DETAILS:

Building an image in Launchpad with focal-proposed enabled, results in livecd-rootfs version
2.664.55 being picked for the image build.

build logs: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/844221874/buildlog_ubuntu_focal_amd64_wsl_BUILDING.txt.gz
resulting image: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-wsl-dev/+livefs/ubuntu/focal/wsl/+build/899929/+files/livecd.ubuntu-wsl.wsl
image manifest: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-wsl-dev/+livefs/ubuntu/focal/wsl/+build/899929/+files/livecd.ubuntu-wsl.manifest

As expected, it contains the .wsl extension and its contents match the
new tar-based format.

With cloud-config data shown below:

```yaml
#cloud-config
locale: pt_BR
users:
- name: jdoe
  gecos: John Doe
  groups: [adm,dialout,cdrom,floppy,sudo,audio,dip,video,plugdev,netdev]
  sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
  shell: /bin/bash

write_files:
- path: /etc/wsl.conf
  append: true
  content: |
    [user]
    default=jdoe

packages: [ginac-tools, octave]
```

double-clicking the image I got a working Focal instance with the user
and packages as described

```
Instalando: C:\Users\User\Downloads\focal.ubuntu-wsl.wsl
Distribuição instalada com êxito. Ele pode ser iniciado por meio de 'wsl.exe -d Ubuntu-20.04'
Iniciando Ubuntu-20.04...
Provisioning the new WSL instance Ubuntu-20.04
This might take a while...
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

jdoe at DESKTOP-551PQ9O:/mnt/c/Users/User/Downloads$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="20.04.6 LTS (Focal Fossa)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS"
VERSION_ID="20.04"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=focal
UBUNTU_CODENAME=focal
jdoe at DESKTOP-551PQ9O:/mnt/c/Users/User/Downloads$ ginsh
ginsh - GiNaC Interactive Shell (GiNaC V1.7.8)
  __,  _______  Copyright (C) 1999-2019 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz,
 (__) *       | Germany.  This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
  ._) i N a C | You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
<-------------' For details type `warranty;'.

Type ?? for a list of help topics.
> jdoe at DESKTOP-551PQ9O:/mnt/c/Users/User/Downloads$ octave
GNU Octave, version 5.2.0
Copyright (C) 2020 John W. Eaton and others.
This is free software; see the source code for copying conditions.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  For details, type 'warranty'.

Octave was configured for "x86_64-pc-linux-gnu".

Additional information about Octave is available at
https://www.octave.org.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For more information, visit https://www.octave.org/get-involved.html

Read https://www.octave.org/bugs.html to learn how to submit bug reports.
For information about changes from previous versions, type 'news'.

octave:1>
jdoe at DESKTOP-551PQ9O:/mnt/c/Users/User/Downloads$
``` 

Shutting down WSL and starting the Focal instance a few times resulted in 0 failed units in 100% of
the times, as expected.

** Tags removed: verification-needed verification-needed-focal
** Tags added: verification-done verification-done-focal

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2115536

Title:
  [SRU] Allow building WSL images of Focal in the new format

Status in livecd-rootfs package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in ubuntu-meta package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in livecd-rootfs source package in Focal:
  Fix Committed
Status in ubuntu-meta source package in Focal:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [ Impact ]

   * Previously, WSL instances relied on a very lightweight build pipeline which was using the CPC image.
  In 22.04 we did a first step to have WSL has its own project in livecd-rootfs, with its own seed and image to produce a rootfs, while leaving Focal for later.

   * Later, changes to livecd-rootfs and related packages for Noble and
  later were implemented to adapt the images to the new format promoted
  by WSL that allows distributions to no longer rely on MS Store, which
  is becoming deprecated for WSL. Those changes are in the process of
  being backported to Jammy.

   * Focal is the only LTS still supported via Ubuntu Pro that lacks
  those image building capabilities.

   * This Stable Release Update request aims to bring Focal to the
  current state of the art build pipeline of WSL images, allowing us to
  host the final artifacts in Canonical's infrastructure and no longer
  depend on MS Store.

   * We thus need to promote 'ubuntu-wsl' as its own project in 'livecd-
  rootfs' for focal, implement the same image building hooks already
  existing in Jammy and update 'ubuntu-meta' to reflect the changes
  already implemented in the seed related to this project.

  [ Test Plan ]

  1. Build a new Focal image for WSL on Launchpad.
    -> we should see one image ending up with ".wsl" for 20.04 image

  A. New installations:

  1. Ship a cloud-init file to touch a file on disk on `%USERPROFILE%\.cloud-init\Ubuntu-20.04.user-data`
  2. Download the image made available from above, double-click install it on a Windows machine with WSL 2.4.4 and later, then:
  -> Check that basic shell commands works
  -> Check that no MoTD messages complains about cloud-init failure
  -> Check that the file from the cloud-init profile was applied
  -> Run systemctl --failed and ensure nothing is listed related to WSL specific configuration itself
  -> Pro attach the machine and check that it’s attached

  [ Where problems could occur ]

  * Most of the issues could happen on initial boot. It will be really
  easy to spot any issues there with the previous test plan.

  * The set of updated defaults in 20.04 only affect WSL targets, so
  other platforms remain unaffected by the proposed changes.

  [ Other Info ]

   * As already explained in LP #2115426, despite Focal being out of
  standard support, we need to align its build pipeline to the current
  state of the art (implemented for Jammy and later), as MS Store is
  being deprecated.

   * All the changes in the packages tracked by this SRU bug are related
  to each other and need to land together otherwise building a WSl image
  of Focal would fail.

   * This report relates to LP #2080223 and LP #2091293, but the changes
  needed for 20.04 are more complex (as already mentioned in the
  former), thus I'd rather do it in a dedicated SRU.

  * The WSL seed for Focal was already aligned with Jammy and later as
  we can see in [this commit in the ubuntu-seeds
  repository](https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-
  seeds/+git/ubuntu/commit/?h=focal&id=70d0bae95ea450b5cb18325d52a56b9e41be9465)

  * Bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-
  meta/+bug/2136341 was opened including 'wsl-pro-service' into Jammy,
  preventing problems for distro upgrades from a new Focal image (built
  after those patches are released).

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