hang-stdin makes command reading stdin would be block forever. This behavior will be equivalent to read the empty pipe.

Here is a way to build and install it.

1. generate build folder

cmake -S . -B ./build

2. start build

cmake --build ./build

3. install

cmake --install ./build --prefix /usr/local/ # root permission required

hang-stdin will requires the target command path and its arguments.

hang-stdin /usr/bin/cat

It will block current shell forever due to blocking read.

If WSL has systemd enabled, the distro will be terminated when no such child process run under WSL init process. This will make some gui applications terminated after last WSL terminal closed. It requires some process running with WSL init process to prevent WSL distro down. WSLInterop features will allow you to run Windows binaries in WSL which will also run WSL init process. And choice is builtin command in Windows which can wait stdin. Hence, we can write such wsl-keepalive.service file to keep the distro running.

[Unit]
Description=WSL Keep Distro Alive

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/hang-stdin /mnt/c/Windows/System32/choice.exe /n

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save it under the path /etc/systemd/system/ and then run systemd command with root permission to control liveness.

• start/stop service will make current distro whether keep alive.

systemctl [start|stop] wsl-keepalive.service

• If you want the service autostart in next distro boot, you can enable the service.

systemctl enable wsl-keepalive.service