Docker wsl data ext4 vhdx cleanup windows. a. I noticed that the space on the hard disk that docker WSL uses doesn't shrink. I recall that when it was introduced in Windows 11, you could not go to . I am running Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL) with Ubuntu as client OS under Windows 10. After all I reclaimed ~138GB and all is working good 👌. 0 started without any problems. Even after deleting all the images and container, docker is not releasing the free disk space back to OS. The VHD file format is the older of the two formats, with the VHDX virtual disk format introduced with Windows Server 2012. Docker Desktop for Windows uses WSL to manage all your images and container files and keeps them in a private virtual hard drive (VHDX) called ext4. This means you can end up in a situation where your virtual disk is taking up 100GB, but WSL2 Windows. Still, not a bad idea to back up the vhdx since you are having problems. 6. vhdx image file of docker is stored under . VHDX is a type of virtual hard disk format developed by Microsoft, used as a disk Which WSL distro is using AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. For Rancher Desktop it is <user>\AppData\Local\rancher-desktop\distro-data\ext4. 25 I got Docker Desktop Privileged helper popup and after it the following:. Sadly, the only solution that works is to go into How can I reclaim my space taken by ext4. vhdx Import the docker-desktop-data back to wsl, but now the ext4. exe init: Creates Docker-related starter files for your project (Docker Inc. I followed the instructions to expand the size of a WSL2 VHD and then use resize2fs to increase to about 900GB. Start Docker (may need to run wsl --start first) On windows terminal open a tab of your Assuming you were using WSL2, try to find an ext4. 2. By default each VHD file used by WSL 2 is initially allocated a 1TB maximum amount of disk space (prior to WSL release 0. The virtual partition needs to be shrunk, the process below can be used. Only a "purge data" command on docker desktop does seem to do the trick The problem is that /dev/sde1 is created and managed by wsl, so not (easily?) accessible by Windows programs like Docker Desktop. 6GB huge when I’m merely ingesting 492MB worth of csv files? I checked my configs in Over time, Docker Desktop running on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (a. 0 (or the previous two version of Docker), unable to resize the docker-desktop ext4. If you use Docker Desktop for Windows that uses WSL2 all your images and If you still notice a vhdx file using a considerable amount of disk space, you can run the following commands in a command prompt to shrink the vhdx file: > wsl --shutdown. > It seems that no matter how few images you have, the Docker VHDX refuses to hand back the disk space it once needed. Turns out there is a way to shrink the vhdx images properly in windows: Run in cmd: docker system prune (optional —all), to clean up disk space. The physical VHDX file shows the expansion after running 'Resize-VHD -Path c:\BaseVHD. Thanks to this comment on Github. vhdx), but shrinking it to reclaim unused space is something that must currently be done manually. If so, can someone please help how I can move from "Ubuntu on Windows" to "Ubuntu" without losing any of my data. vhdx to 650 GB (not use the default size 1 TB) and export - I’m running a container from Docker Desktop/Windows with its internal utility that can only write data to a Linux filesystem (I presume this means EXT4-formatted disk) with the intent to then consume offline later from Windows tooling. vhdx file and disk path for Linux distributions installed with WSL 2. The file system used within this virtual machine is generally in the ext4 format, which is commonly used in Linux. vhdx and delete the backup once you have confirmed the other commands are successful. If you believe the question would be on-topic on another Stack Exchange site, you can leave a comment to explain where the question may be able to be answered. It's usually in Have you seen that the folder c:\users\<yourname>\AppData\Local\Docker\WSL\Data is growing and never shrinking? Well Resize your Docker Data Volume with one command and reclaim a lot of space on your HDD. Now I am wondering where all the Docker volumes and other Description When running docker images using Windows 10 professional, the docker virtual disk MobiLinuxVM. vhdx -Mode Full. vhdx to a non system disk? I installed Docker on a clean laptop with the official Windows 11 with the latest update. exe -d docker-desktop -u root -e wsl-bootstrap version: Failed to . The docker-desktop-data vhdx is normally in this location: Why is my “C:\Users\ethan\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. Now I installed Docker Desktop on the Windows host and enabled the WSL integration in the Docker settings. Here is how I was able to free up over Learn how to check the amount of disk space available, expand the size of the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), repair a VHD mounting or read-only error, and locate the . 1. json (Docker desktop + WSL2 environment) 5. Shut down docker process. vhdx" -Mode Full This command uses the Optimize-VHD tool to compress the VHDX file. Stop Docker Desktop. vhdx” being 25. It’s usually in C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data and you can often reclaim some of the space if you’ve cleaned up (pruned your images, etc) with Optimize-Vhd under an I've created a named volume for my SQL Linux data files but the default size of 251G was too small. WSL 2) may start to eat away at your hard drive space. 5 Path: C: \P rogram Files \D ocker \c li-plugins \d ocker-feedback. I made a docker compose build command and it downloaded half of the internet, filling up my disk. The path to the file for Docker Desktop is <user>\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. Right mouse click on How to reduce size of docker data volume in Docker Desktop for Windows v2. Reload to refresh your session. Hot Network Questions Legally binding Infernal Contracts A story about tiny beings Probably going to have to be a feature request to the Docker Desktop team and/or the WSL team. vhdx in Windows 10. The partition is mounted with shared propagation into /mnt/wsl/something. When you restart docker desktop, it should recreate the docker-desktop-data distro. Tip. Here are the commands to resolve and reclaim your diskspace. The WSL 2 ext4. C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. By default, Docker Desktop stores the data for the WSL 2 engine at C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl. Docker Desktop uses a VHDX file to store its items on and you'll only remove files from that virtual hard drive. Windows knows where all of your WSL data is from: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss\<GUID>. When running docker, the "docker The WSL disk image has grown to fill the host C:/ drive due to too many large docker builds. Note down the new size in MB. I could not bash into or ssh into the docker-data distro shown or access its ext4. Cant Install Laravel with Docker on Windows WSL. 4. I think I must've updated Docker within the last day or two and can no longer access volumes from that path. vhd -SizeBytes 1500G' --- but volume still shows 'no space' left when copying data into '\wsl\docker-desktop-data\version-pack You signed in with another tab or window. You can do it like this. g. The path to the virtual disk was found via WinDirStat: "DISKPART> attach vdisk readonly Virtual Disk Service error: The virtual disk is already attached. vhdx" but WSL1 sets a fixed disk size as specified in your Docker settings. Unregister desktop-data wsl --unregister docker-desktop-data 5. create a backup of your vhdx if you want. 1 on my windows machine following this path: "Docker Desktop > Settings > Resources > Advanced > Disk image location" moving disk file: rename C:\Users\Reza\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\disk\docker_data. It is a frighteningly long and complicated bug report that has been open since 2016 and has yet to be resolved, but might be addressed through the "Troubleshoot" screen's "Clean/Purge Data" function: Docker Desktop for Windows v2, which uses WSL2, stores all image and container files in a separate virtual volume (vhdx). How to move C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. 31. The first thing you'll need to Run a docker system prune -a to remove all unnessary images and shut down containers, then shrink your vhdx according this or this. ) Version: v1. Export docker-desktop-data into a file: - wsl --export docker-desktop-data "D:\Docker\wsl\data\docker-desktop-data. vhdx after docker-desktop-data was exported and unregistered. Docker Desktop for Windows v2, which uses WSL2, stores all image and container files in a I am using Docker with WSL2 integration on Windows 10 Home. A reinstall of WSL itself should be okay, as others have mentioned. i tried diskpart commands but its throwing some I want to import a vhdx image on windows 11 that I exported from another broken WSL2 on a Windows 10 PC. vhdx from here: This question does not appear to be about a specific programming problem, a software algorithm, or software tools primarily used by programmers. If the VHDX is gone, there's probably not much you can do. where is hostconfig. Shutdown wsl (PS > wsl --shotdown), then unregister (PS > wsl --unregister docker-desktop-data). Ensure that your docker data is cleaned up docker WSL will automatically grow the virtual disk (ext4. After you've removed the files from the VHDX, you're going to need to shrink the VHDX file too. vhdx" but Turns out there is a way to shrink the vhdx images properly in windows: Run in cmd: docker system prune (optional —all), to clean up disk space Right mouse click on docker desktop in system tray -> quit Docker Desktop for Windows v2, which uses WSL2, stores all image and container files in a separate virtual volume (vhdx). Docker Desktop for Windows uses WSL to manage all your images and container files and Luckily, you can reduce its size manually by calling this command in PowerShell (as Administrator): Optimize-VHD -Path c:\path\to\data. Ever. Now with fresh version 4. \PHYSICALDRIVE2 as drive D: and mounted as : docker run -v 'D:\data:/data' This way, you can access it both on Windows and wsl. Don't bother trying to mount this file with Disk Manager or using diskpart, it's ext4 which Windows won't natively read (outside of WSL). If you can find that, your data should be safe. vhdx would reside in different drive/directory: wsl --import docker-desktop-data "D:\Docker\wsl\data" "D: ติดตั้ง WSL 2, Docker Desktop บน Windows 10 ; Alternative choice to Change the location. I reproduced and identified the root cause. I tried moving Docker Desktop's image's location from System disk to Drive D to avoid over-consuming the system disk. exe -l -v NAME STATE VERSION * Ubuntu Running 2 docker-desktop Stopped 2 docker-desktop-data Stopped 2 output of df -h / I am trying to change Disk image location in Docker Desktop v4. tar and just examined the resulting tar file. vhdx file. 0 Path: C: \P You don't, there's only ONE ext4. 0 Path: C: \P rogram Files \D ocker \c li-plugins \d ocker-init. tar. I can share the tutorial video if it would help. Let's shrink the VHDX used by Docker Desktop. It only supported tar. 0 should be worked with. exe sbom: View the packaged-based Software Bill Of Materials (SBOM) for an image (Anchore Inc. I want to import a vhdx image on windows 11 that I exported from another broken WSL2 on a Windows 10 PC. Windows Version: Docker Desktop Version:2. k. 58. On my Windows 11 machine, I am running several containers formed from images that are updated regularly. WSL2 uses windows default setting of 256GB max volume size. January 11, 2024. I used to access the config of my containers from here: \\wsl$\docker-desktop-data\mnt\wsl\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes. exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsl. This thread is based on my issues with this one As I see, there is no working way of using WSL routine procedures to export and then import docker-desktop-data distro of Docker if the real file of ext4. Ideally this is a logical drive (rather than a physical HDD). Steps. Since it's WSL2, you can at least back up the ext4. tar" 4. vhdx" attach vdisk readonly compact vdisk detach vdisk exit In addition to the use of docker prune -a, be aware of this issue: Windows 10: Docker does not release disk space after deleting all images and containers #244. I try to excute Mount-VHD -Path "D:\wsl\docker-desktop-data\ext4. 0. vhdx volume through various methods. By doing so: reference 1. run Optimize-VHD -Path "C:\ProgramData\DockerDesktop\vm Shrink your WSL2 Virtual Disks and Docker Images and Reclaim Disk Space. vhdx to expand volumes. Running Docker-Desktop 3. I just recently installed Docker on Windows, so I haven't created any volumes yet to see if they are stored there. Then I executed docker system prune to no avail, then Docker Desktop Disk space extension to no avail. Docker. Now docker commands work from Windows using the new WSL 2 engine. If you don't mind completely wiping out your docker data and re-creating C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. vhdx for docker. '/mnt/wsl/mountname' is where the drive gets mapped in WSL, but since Docker is actually running from Windows, so it doesn't understand that path and nothing gets mapped. sudo resize2fs /dev/sdb 900000M Some people in the thread say that the method described corrupted their vhdx file). PS. However, I can see a . vhdx which contains the entire filesystem and restore it afterwards. Disk storage files in wsl2. But some people might have space limitations or have Windows 10 (assuming that is still the case). Published. Just need to import the VHDX into WSL2. diskpart # open window Diskpart select vdisk file="C:\WSL-Distros\\ext4. This is only needed on a Windows re-install, though. open an admin powershell terminal. vhdx somewhere in your user profile folder. As for why we can't access it via wsl -d docker-desktop-data, that appears to be because it has a 0 byte /init. This virtual hard disk file can automatically grow when it needs more space (to a certain limit). tar" 2. Step 2: Clean up the WSL installation for Docker. Background Docker Desktop for Windows uses a virtual machine (typically virtualization technologies like WSL or Hyper-V) to run Linux containers on Windows. If the common methods of reducing the disk space used by Docker yield no results, you can take some extra measures. vhdx docker data volume size not being reduced even though I was pruning everything ( docker system prune --all). On stopping docker desktop, we try to be a good citizen and cleanly unmount everything that is part of our Linuxkit distro environment (and as we mount /mnt/wsl in recursive mount, that means that we unmount /mnt/wsl/PHYSICALDRIVE1p1). That works fine so far, I can access the Docker daemon running on the Windows host from my WSL Ubuntu client. Maybe that has changed? I don't have windows 10 for quite a long time. Docker Desktop creates the VHD that docker-desktop-data uses, but it probably relies on WSL to do so. export distro as tar: wsl --export docker-desktop-data ddfw_export. (Docker Inc. Docker version 2. 3. WSL 2 automatically resizes these VHD files to meet storage needs. vhdx ext4 (fourth extended filesystem) is a journaling file system for Linux. I can mount my VHD and see if from WSL, I just haven't figured out the correct path for mounting it in a docker volume . . Run below command in single line (added in multiple lines for better reading) wsl --export docker-desktop-data "new drive tar path e. Which WSL distro is using AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. check WSL These VHDs use the ext4 file system type and are represented on your Windows hard drive as an ext4. ) Version: 0. Make sure Docker Desktop is shutdown. After completing this you can shrink a disk image though: stop docker desktop. You signed out in another tab or window. As an emergency measure I pushed Ctrl-C. I’ve tried the following approaches: Create a Windows . Pre-installed WSL2 for Windows 11 according to Microsoft documentation. Both the VHD and VHDX files are virtual disk formats available for Microsoft Hyper-V. wsl --shutdown # At this point, it is recommended that you back up your ext. " it is not turning disk into readonly. When Docker Engine is running, then use Command Line 'wsl --shutdown' to restart the Docker Desktop then both Docker Here are instruction - how compact huge ext4. Output of wsl -l -v $ wsl. vhdx File Size On Windows A common issue I’ve ran into when running Docker Desktop on Windows is a virtual drive consuming a large amount of disk space. It will not take all that space up from your drive, it will increase as it need to. vhdx is about 500 GB OK, in this case I want to install the Docker but set up a limit of a virtual size in this ext4. Optimize-VHD -Path "${Env:LocalAppData}\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. vhdx or delete it if possible. It takes plenty of spaces so we’d like to migrate it to somewhere else, like G:\. vhdx. Author. Any ideas hot to I have Windows 10 Pro + Docker for Desktop with WSL2 components. Browse to C:\Users\[Your User]\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data Select ext4. However, one of the few downsides of WSL2 is that it uses a virtual disk (VHDX) to store the filesystem. 0 this default was set to a 512GB max and 256GB max Locate the vhdx file where docker stores the data. Earlier I can just rerun docker and that is. "P:\Users\your-username\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4. One workaround is to mount \. confirm docker-desktop-data is not present anymore wsl -l -v 6. I understand that once a drive is mounted in WSL, it should show in all distros. What happens after a I’m a huge fan of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), especially WSL2 which uses a virtualisation layer to bring increased performance and compatibility to WSL. vhdx" wsl --mount "D:\wsl\docker-desktop-data\ext4. vhdx and follow the wizard to increase it to whatever size you like. By default, the ext4. You switched accounts on another tab or window. If you have a "Windows. 16. Anyway, assuming you want to take this path, and you have backed up your data, or you don't mind losing everything. old" folder on your drive after the reset, there may be a copy there as well. provisioning docker WSL distros: ensuring main distro is deployed: checking if main distro is up to date: checking main distro bootstrap version: getting main distro bootstrap version: exit code: 4294967295: running WSL command wsl. D:\ceres_dwh\Docker_WSL\dockerdesktop. Motivation. If you want to change the location, for example, to another drive you can do so via the Settings -> Resources -> Advanced page from – Make a comment on Reducing Docker ext4. So what I think has happened that since I pushed Ctrl-C in panic, docker compose did not perform any sort of Once in that folder, open LocalState and you'll find your VHDX file. vhdx keeps on growing. I prefer the vhdx because it creates/restores them so quickly. You signed in with another tab or window. This is a virtual hard disk used by docker. vhdx" In my case docker is using up about 27GB of disk space in this file. 3; Are you running inside a virtualized Windows e. As for how to inspect it, I used wsl --export docker-desktop-data docker-desktop-data. It would be possible for Docker Desktop to manually provision the VHD with a user-configurable maximum size (at least on Windows Pro and higher), but WSL First, to use Docker Desktop for Windows ARM version, if k8s is enabled, then WSL version 2. vhdx then use a 3rd Some people in the thread say that the method described corrupted their vhdx file). I've connected the docker engine with WSL because that's where the images are built. on a cloud server or on a mac VM: Steps to reproduce the behavior. unregister distro: wsl --unregister docker-desktop-data. unbgbcwk tjg ltjba xdors wynn cnfbr kzvx hws zlnoewp slevrm