Overview

Development on Windows is only supported through WSL2. WSL lets users run a Linux environment on Windows, providing a supported development environment for Kibana with a much better experience and performance than the native one.

The latest setup instructions can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

1. Open Powershell as an administrator

2. Install WSL with Ubuntu and restart the machine when prompted

wsl --install -d Ubuntu
		

In case you already have WSL installed you can just wsl --update and then reboot the machine.

3. Once rebooted the installation will proceed for a new WSL install. If that's not the case make sure you're using WSL2 and Ubuntu by

wsl --set-default-version 2
		

and

wsl --set-default Ubuntu
		

4. Install support for Google Chrome by running the following inside WSL shell (IMPORTANT: Default Experience Only)

   Start by updating your apt package sources list with

sudo apt update
		

Enter your user password, then

sudo apt -y upgrade && sudo apt -y autoremove
cd /tmp
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt install --fix-broken -y
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
		

Now you can launch Google Chrome by either google-chrome on your WSL shell or from Ubuntu Applications on Windows.

It's also worth it to check if there are other useful GUI packages you would want to add on WSL and then the configuration is complete.

The next step is now setup your development environment for Kibana inside WSL just like in any other case.

Even though in previous steps you might have installed Nautilus and other X11 apps that allows you to use the file explorer for the WSL environment or even using some apps supported by X11 like Sublime Text our recommended way to write your code is by using VSCode installed natively on Windows and then use its remote development extension to connect into the WSL environment. You can do this by completing the following:

1. Install VSCode on Windows
2. Check the "Add to PATH" option during setup
3. Install the Remote Development package

For more information you can find the official documentation on how to Remote development is supported with an extension here.

At this point you should be able to develop Kibana using WSL by writing code on VSCode, running commands for build, test and manage your dev environment using the WSL shell and finally having a basic GUI support for your WSL environment using the applications we recommended like Google Chrome and others you choose to install like for example Nautilus file manager or other X11 based ones.

As mentioned before is highly recommended you setup your environment for a default experience using Windows 11. If you're reading this section is because you are not available to do that for a reason and at the same time you still have the need for a GUI browser on Windows 10. Next you can find our recommendations for a short term workaround to achieve that for Windows 10 before we could terminate the support for this operating system.

1. Fulfil the prerequisites for basic experience as well as installing the vGPU drivers from the default experience.

2. Make sure you've followed Install WSL up to step 3, Setup Kibana and Install VSCode.

3. Install Google Chrome and it's dependencies by

cd /tmp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y curl unzip xvfb libxi6 libgconf-2-4
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
		

Then run google-chrome --version and you should be able to get the current version installed printed out.

4. Download VcXsrv and install it natively on your Windows. Once installed go to the program files folder for VcXsrv and run xlaunch.exe. The majority of the default settings are okay but make sure Disable access control is checked. In doubt, check the same settings as shown into this Github issue image. Next, allow this application through the firewall if prompted when its first ran. Otherwise, if not asked, please go to Windows firewall -> Allow an app through firewall -> click change settings -> select BOTH entries of "VcXsrv windows server" -> OK.

5. Configure the DISPLAY env var which in Linux tells GUI applications at which IP address the X Server is running. On WSL2 the IP for the native Windows is not localhost, so we need to set DISPLAY to the correct IP address. Let's go ahead and add the following into the .bashrc file of your WSL environment:

export DISPLAY=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2; exit;}'):0.0
		

Once complete, running echo $DISPLAY inside your WSL shell should print the Windows native IP suffixed by :0.0.

6. When reaching that point, if you run google-chrome on the WSL shell, the Chrome browser should open inside an X server window on Windows which should also work as expected when the functional tests chromedriver will try to use a browser to run into.

If that is seen when running the Google Chrome

Error: /etc/machine-id contains 0 characters (32 were expected).
Unable to open X display
		

• Make sure VcXsrv is running in Windows with “Disable access control” checked.
• Make sure VcXsrv is whitelisted in the Windows firewall (search the start menu for “Allow a program through Windows firewall” and enable it there)

For more information on how to configure this alternative X server or to troubleshoot other problems please check the official documentation or a popular Github issue.