Boundary OSS Tutorial "Connect to Your First Target" Couldn't Connect on WSL

Boundary
1

Hi! So I’ve been having hard time to try the OSS Quick Start for Boundary at the part of “Connect to Your First Target” tutorial, with the details like…

[WSL CLI]

export AUTH_ID=ampw_1234567890
export TARGET_ID=ttcp_1234567890
boundary authenticate password -auth-method-id=$AUTH_ID -login-name=admin
Please enter the password (it will be hidden):

Authentication information:
Account ID: acctpw_1234567890
Auth Method ID: ampw_1234567890
Expiration Time: Wed, 19 Oct 2022 15:56:11 +07
User ID: u_1234567890
Error opening “pass” keyring: Specified keyring backend not available
The token was not successfully saved to a system keyring. The token is:

[token]

It must be manually passed in via the BOUNDARY_TOKEN env var or -token flag. Storing the token can also be disabled via -keyring-type=none.

export BOUNDARY_TOKEN=[token]
boundary targets read -id $TARGET_ID

Direct usage of BOUNDARY_TOKEN env var is deprecated; please use “-token env://” format, e.g. “-token env://BOUNDARY_TOKEN” to specify an env var to use.

Target information:
Created Time: Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:40:59 +07
Description: Provides an initial target in Boundary
ID: ttcp_1234567890
Name: Generated target
Session Connection Limit: -1
Session Max Seconds: 28800
Type: tcp
Updated Time: Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:40:59 +07
Version: 2

Scope:
ID: p_1234567890
Name: Generated project scope
Parent Scope ID: o_1234567890
Type: project

Authorized Actions:
no-op
read
update
delete
add-host-sources
set-host-sources
remove-host-sources
add-credential-sources
set-credential-sources
remove-credential-sources
authorize-session

Host Sources:
Host Catalog ID: hcst_1234567890
ID: hsst_1234567890

Attributes:
Default Port: 22

boundary connect ssh -target-id $TARGET_ID
Direct usage of BOUNDARY_TOKEN env var is deprecated; please use “-token env://” format, e.g. “-token env://BOUNDARY_TOKEN” to specify an env var to use.
kex_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

By the part that says “kex_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host” I’ve tried to look it up for solutions on the internet and some tutorials, but sadly I didn’t able to solve the problem. The only information that I could get is Remote Login has to be enabled (for MacOS) but I was trying it on WSL that was based from Windows 10, and currently I had my Remote Desktop settings enabled. When I’ve tried to use sudo command, it just gave me this error :

Error opening keyring: Specified keyring backend not available
Token must be provided via BOUNDARY_TOKEN env var or -token flag. Reading the token can also be disabled via -keyring-type=none.
Error from controller when performing authorize-session action against given target

Error information:
Kind: Unauthenticated
Message: Unauthenticated, or invalid token.
Status: 401
context: Error from controller when performing authorize-session action against given target

Is there anything I could do to fix it? Thanks.

2

That first-target workflow is for connecting specifically to a host via SSH. Remote Desktop is a separate protocol (RDP). In WSL, if you don’t have SSH running (you should be able to check with ss -tlpn src localhost:22 – if there’s nothing listed, then the SSH service isn’t running in WSL) then the connection will fail.

3

Thank you for the reply, I have checked the ss -tlpn src localhost:22 and it doesn’t returns any list at all. Is there any way for me to run the SSH service on WSL?

4

Ohh… nevermind, I’ve tried to look at ssh for wsl2 and looks like it doesn’t started by default, so I had to type sudo service ssh start if I want to enable the ssh server, thanks for the help

1 Like
5

You can probably enable it on startup permanently with systemctl enable --now ssh if your WSL is using a systemd-based distribution.