Add AzureLinux official WSL image to the distribution manifest by mfrw · Pull Request #41120 · microsoft/WSL

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) · 2026-07-20T15:50:28Z

Signed-off-by: Muhammad Falak R Wani [email protected]

Summary of the Pull Request

PR Checklist

Closes: Add Support For AzureLinux 4.0 #41182
Communication: We've discussed this with core contributors already. If work hasn't been agreed, this work might be rejected
Tests: Added/updated if needed and all pass
Localization: All end user facing strings can be localized
Dev docs: Added/updated if needed
Documentation updated: If checked, please file a pull request on our docs repo and link it here: #xxx

Detailed Description of the Pull Request / Additional comments

Validation Steps Performed

azure-pipelines · 2026-07-20T15:50:37Z

Azure Pipelines: There may be pipelines that require an authorized user to comment /azp run to run.

Ben Hillis (benhillis) · 2026-07-20T15:52:53Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-07-20T15:53:03Z

Azure Pipelines: Successfully started running 1 pipeline(s).

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR updates the WSL distribution manifest to add AzureLinux as a modern distribution option, including architecture-specific download locations and SHA256 hashes.

Changes:

Added a new ModernDistributions.AzureLinux entry with an AzureLinux-4.0-BETA image.
Provided amd64/arm64 .wsl download URLs and corresponding SHA256 hashes.

+                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-x86_64.wsl",
+                    "Sha256": "92e709a8f7e9e5981d839c74358449857dcdfae57636a6b5e30001898790d992"
+                },
+                "Arm64Url": {
+                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-aarch64.wsl",
+                    "Sha256": "6ac4a5cdfa8d3c1308cb6cca133c0f30a47ae2cb639ee4cde0ada2d3a65298ce"


Ben Hillis (benhillis) · 2026-07-20T15:53:30Z

Muhammad Falak R Wani (@mfrw) - there are some issues that should be resolved before merging, can you please take a look?

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) · 2026-07-20T17:58:46Z

Muhammad Falak R Wani (@mfrw) - there are some issues that should be resolved before merging, can you please take a look?

Sure - will do

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

distributions/DistributionInfo.json:263

The download URLs point to osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/..., which appears to be a PR-specific or internal distribution endpoint (and is the only prss.microsoft.com reference in this manifest). For an official distro entry, this should likely use a stable, long-lived public URL (similar to the other ModernDistributions entries) to avoid future breakage if PR artifacts are rotated/removed.

                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-x86_64.wsl",
                    "Sha256": "92e709a8f7e9e5981d839c74358449857dcdfae57636a6b5e30001898790d992"
                },
                "Arm64Url": {
                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-aarch64.wsl",
                    "Sha256": "6ac4a5cdfa8d3c1308cb6cca133c0f30a47ae2cb639ee4cde0ada2d3a65298ce"

Ben Hillis (benhillis) · 2026-07-20T19:43:25Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-07-20T19:43:35Z

Azure Pipelines: Successfully started running 1 pipeline(s).

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) · 2026-07-21T04:22:57Z

PR Raised to address the missing icon file:

feat(azurelinux-logos): add azurelinux-logo.ico + fedora-logo.ico symlink azurelinux#18073

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Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

distributions/DistributionInfo.json:256

The PR title says this adds an "official" Azure Linux WSL image, but the manifest entry is explicitly marked as BETA (Name ends with "-BETA" and FriendlyName includes "(BETA)"). This is a user-visible mismatch: either the entry should be the stable/official image (no BETA labeling), or the PR title/intent should be updated to reflect that this is a beta image.

                "Name": "AzureLinux-4.0-BETA",
                "FriendlyName": "Azure Linux 4.0 (BETA)",
                "Default": true,

Craig Loewen (craigloewen-msft) · 2026-07-22T16:26:25Z

Muhammad Falak R Wani (@mfrw)
Right now you call this distro "AzureLinux-4.0-BETA" which I would advise against. You should use one stable and consistent name for your distribution.

What happens when this package comes out of BETA? It will be seen as an entirely new WSL distribution, which really isn't the case. I'd recommend using a name like AzureLinux-4.0 or something to that effect

Craig Loewen (craigloewen-msft)

Should resolve naming first.

Blue (OneBlue)

Thank you for doing this !

Looking through the tar, there are a couple things that we should fix before merging:

The icon referenced by /etc/wsl-distribution.conf doesn't exist:

[shortcut]
enabled = true
icon = /usr/share/pixmaps/fedora-logo.ico # <= Not in the tar

The OOBE script references Fedora (I'm guessing because it's inspired from their OOBE script)
The manifest name doesn't match the distribution name in /etc/wsl-distribution.conf (AzureLinux-4 vs AzureLinux-4.0-BETA)
Some redundant system units are enabled by default.

Specifically:

systemd-vconsole-setup.service (WSL automatically configures a TTY on that device, and this will typically fail if multiple distros try to do this in parallel)
systemd-resolved.service (WSL owns the DNS and writes to /etc/resolv.conf)
systemd-networkd-* (WSL configures networking, distributions shouldn't need to make changes to adapter configuration)
[email protected] This tty is essentially unreachable so I'd recommend not running it at all. This will also fail if another distro tries to do this as well

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distributions/DistributionInfo.json:263

The AzureLinux ModernDistributions URLs point at a .../pr/download/... endpoint, which looks like a pull-request/staging artifact location and may not be stable long-term. If this URL disappears or is rotated, wsl --install / distro list fetching will break for this entry. Please switch these to a long-lived, versioned release location intended for public consumption (similar to the other distro entries).

                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-x86_64.wsl",
                    "Sha256": "a7b3f2ff714105dcb22a45c9b8072b66df7a71b0b6dcd97455b1fb60ca176056"
                },
                "Arm64Url": {
                    "Url": "https://osrelease.download.prss.microsoft.com/pr/download/AzureLinux-4.0-aarch64.wsl",
                    "Sha256": "f5a36b4185977cef3d62db44acb566da039d81db3bae04f6241364189a754d6c"

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) · 2026-07-23T15:06:14Z

Ack Craig Loewen (@craigloewen-msft) & Blue (@OneBlue) - will address the feedback

Jim Perrin (jperrin) · 2026-07-23T15:20:06Z

Craig Loewen (@craigloewen-msft) my reasoning for asking Muhammad Falak R Wani (@mfrw) to explicitly name the image as a Beta is because there won't be an easy way to update to the GA release once we launch. The alternative would be to hold the image back until we GA officially.

azure-pipelines · 2026-11-04T19:25:12Z

Azure Pipelines: Successfully started running 1 pipeline(s).

Ben Hillis (benhillis) · 2026-11-04T19:26:01Z


        return is_dev_null(target)

+    # Highest priority first, matching systemd's unit search path.


Can I get some additional context on the substantial changes that were needed here?

I have added systemd dropins instead of masks as suggested by: link. Also, if it makes sense, i can probably raise a seperate PR for this and leave only the distro addition here.

Copilot

🟡 Changes recommended

The parser ignores condition-list resets that can suppress discouraged-unit warnings, while repeated random-access reads of compressed archives multiply validation I/O.

3 open issues

_{Review effort: Balanced}

+        if info is None or not info.isfile():
+            return None
+
+        return tar.extractfile(info).read().decode('utf-8', errors='replace')


Ralph Squillace (squillace) · 2026-11-06T09:18:32Z

Craig Loewen (@craigloewen-msft) pinging in my morning to see what I can do here. do NOT see this as pressure; just want to focus attention should there be a resolution just hanging around for attention. :-)

Blue (OneBlue) · 2026-11-06T18:10:36Z

Ralph Squillace (@squillace): The manifest change look good, if you move the CI changes to a separate change, this should be ready to merge

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) · 2026-11-07T04:02:22Z

Ralph Squillace (Ralph Squillace (@squillace)): The manifest change look good, if you move the CI changes to a separate change, this should be ready to merge

ack sir - PTAL whenver you get a chance.

Copilot

🔵 Needs a closer look

Maintainers need to confirm public-listing readiness because Azure Linux 4 remains in development and the linked issue calls for keeping it unlisted during beta, while both images, checksums, and Windows installation behavior still require validation.

3 open issues

_{Review effort: Balanced}

Copilot

🔵 Needs a closer look

Azure Linux 4.0’s public-listing readiness remains unresolved, and its x64/ARM64 download artifacts, checksums, and WSL installation behavior could not be validated in this environment.

3 open issues

_{Review effort: Balanced}

Blue (OneBlue) · 2026-11-09T18:37:07Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-11-09T18:37:19Z

Azure Pipelines: Successfully started running 1 pipeline(s).

WSL's distribution manifest lists Azure Linux 4 (microsoft/WSL#41120), renamed to AzureLinux-4 by the WSL manifest PR this depends on, so "wsl --install AzureLinux-4" downloads the package for the host's architecture, checks it against the SHA-256 checksum in the manifest, and registers it as AzureLinux-4. Signed-off-by: Muhammad Falak R Wani <[email protected]>

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Comment thread distributions/DistributionInfo.json Resolved

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Comment thread distributions/validate-modern.py Outdated

if info is None or not info.isfile():

return None

return tar.extractfile(info).read().decode('utf-8', errors='replace')

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) mentioned this pull request Nov 5, 2026

[4.0] WSL support microsoft/azurelinux#18088

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Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) requested a review from Ben Hillis (benhillis) November 5, 2026 14:27

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Craig Loewen (craigloewen-msft) approved these changes Nov 9, 2026

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Craig Loewen (craigloewen-msft) enabled auto-merge (squash) November 9, 2026 10:41

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Craig Loewen (craigloewen-msft) merged commit 2183822 into microsoft:master Nov 9, 2026
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Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) mentioned this pull request Nov 9, 2026

docs(wsl): install Azure Linux 4 from the WSL distribution list microsoft/azurelinux#20091

Merged

Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) deleted the mfrw/azurelinux4 branch November 9, 2026 23:50


		return is_dev_null(target)

		# Highest priority first, matching systemd's unit search path.

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Summary of the Pull Request

PR Checklist

Detailed Description of the Pull Request / Additional comments

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Muhammad Falak R Wani (mfrw) commented Jul 20, 2026 •

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