My question is related to In WSL2: Ubuntu 20.04 for Windows 10 nodejs is installed but npm is not working
I faced the same problem, which I resolved by converting the line endings to Unix style. But then, running the command starts failing with this:
mark@L-R910LPKW:~$ npm -v
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:883
throw err;
^
Error: Cannot find module '\\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:880:15)
at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:725:27)
at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:72:12)
at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47 {
code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
requireStack: []
}
mark@L-R910LPKW:~$
Which surfaces an interesting file path - \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js
So \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04 actually references the root of the Linux distro when examined from Windows:
C:\> dir \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04
Directory: \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 10/6/2022 6:27 PM home
d----- 4/23/2020 2:40 AM srv
d----- 10/7/2022 3:18 PM .certs
d----- 10/7/2022 4:41 PM etc
d----- 4/23/2020 2:40 AM opt
d----- 10/7/2022 4:41 PM root
d----- 10/6/2022 6:27 PM mnt
d----- 4/23/2020 2:41 AM usr
d----- 4/23/2020 2:40 AM media
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM sys
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM dev
d----- 4/23/2020 2:49 AM boot
d----- 10/6/2022 10:27 PM run
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM proc
d----- 4/10/2020 10:57 AM snap
d----- 10/7/2022 3:50 PM tmp
d----- 4/23/2020 2:43 AM var
d----- 4/10/2019 12:35 PM lost+found
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 7 lib
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 9 lib64
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 8 sbin
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 7 bin
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 9 lib32
-----l 4/23/2020 2:40 AM 10 libx32
------ 6/18/2022 4:36 AM 1392928 init
C:\>
And /mnt/c is where the C: drive is mounted under Linux:
mark@L-R910LPKW:~$ ls /mnt/c
ls: cannot access '/mnt/c/DumpStack.log.tmp': Permission denied
ls: cannot access '/mnt/c/hiberfil.sys': Permission denied
ls: cannot access '/mnt/c/pagefile.sys': Permission denied
ls: cannot access '/mnt/c/swapfile.sys': Permission denied
'$Recycle.Bin' DumpStack.log 'Program Files (x86)' Users log
'$WINRE_BACKUP_PARTITION.MARKER' DumpStack.log.tmp ProgramData Windows node-modules-cache
'$WinREAgent' Graphviz Recovery cygwin pagefile.sys
'Ceridian Software' ILSpy Shared cygwin64 swapfile.sys
Config.Msi Intel Symbols dayforce tenorshare
DBBackups NDepend 'System Volume Information' docker totalcmd
DRIVERS PerfLogs Temp hiberfil.sys utils
'Documents and Settings' 'Program Files' Ubuntu lfs work
mark@L-R910LPKW:~$
So \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js is essentially C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js, which definitely exists:
C:\> dir "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js"
Directory: C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 4/6/2021 3:07 PM 4861 npm-cli.js
C:\>
However, there is a disconnect - the directory \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c is inaccessible from Windows:
C:\> dir \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt
Directory: \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM wsl
d----- 10/7/2022 4:28 PM wslg
d----- 10/7/2022 7:19 AM c
C:\> dir \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c
dir : Access is denied
At line:1 char:1
+ dir \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (\\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\c:String) [Get-ChildItem], Unauthor
izedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ItemExistsUnauthorizedAccessError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
C:\>
But the other directories are accessible:
C:\> dir \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\wsl\
Directory: \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\mnt\wsl
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM docker-desktop-bind-mounts
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM docker-desktop
d----- 10/6/2022 10:21 PM docker-desktop-data
------ 10/6/2022 11:47 PM 122 resolv.conf
C:\>
The difference, as I see it, is that /mnt/c (and everything under it) is owned by my local Linux account whereas the others are owned by the root:
mark@L-R910LPKW:/mnt$ ls -l
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 1 mark mark 4096 Oct 7 07:19 c
drwxrwxrwt 5 root root 120 Oct 6 22:21 wsl
drwxrwxrwt 6 root root 260 Oct 7 16:28 wslg
mark@L-R910LPKW:/mnt$
I wonder if this is the real root cause and if so - what is the proper way to fix it assuming I want this particular path to be accessible from Windows.
I may remove the Windows paths from the Linux PATH entirely, but I want to learn how this stuff works and so it is important to me to understand what is going on and how to fix it.
