PowerShell Script – Fixing DNS Resolution with WSL Ubuntu for While Connected to Anyconnect VPN

Had this odd issue over the past week that I’d been trying to figure out once connected to company VPN via Cisco AnyConnect.

This annoyed me enough that I wrote up a PowerShell Script to automatically handle the mode switching when on and off VPN.

Symptoms:

• Curl didn’t work
• Ping didn’t work

There were loads of solutions online but this one worked the best for me and required no modification of the Windows Network Setting – I don’t have administrative rights on my machine and wanted an option that didn’t require getting help from IT.

Automatic Script to Enable AnyConnect Mode for WSL Ubuntu:

1. Create “enableAnyConnect.ps1” somewhere on computer
2. Add the following code to the file
3. Execute the file via PowerShell window using ./enableAnyConnect.ps1

wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "cat /etc/resolv.conf &&\
                       sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf.bak &&\
                       sudo rm -f /etc/wsl.conf &&\
                       echo '[network]' | sudo tee /etc/wsl.conf &&\
                       echo 'generateResolvConf = false' | sudo tee -a /etc/wsl.conf"

wsl --terminate ubuntu

wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "sudo cp --remove-destination /etc/resolv.conf.bak /etc/resolv.conf &&\
                       sudo sed -i '/nameserver/s/^/#/' /etc/resolv.conf"


$ciscoAnyconnectAdapter = Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object {$_.InterfaceDescription -Match "Cisco AnyConnect"}
$output = Get-DnsClientServerAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 | Where-Object {$_.InterfaceAlias -Match $ciscoAnyconnectAdapter.InterfaceAlias}

foreach($serverAddress in $output.ServerAddresses)
{
    wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "echo 'nameserver $serverAddress' | sudo tee -a /etc/resolv.conf"
}

wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "curl https://www.google.com"

Automatic Script to Disable AnyConnect Mode for WSL Ubuntu:

1. Create “disableAnyConnect.ps1” somewhere on computer
2. Add the following code to the file
3. Execute the file via PowerShell window using ./disableAnyConnect.ps1

wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "sudo rm -f /etc/wsl.conf"

wsl --terminate ubuntu

wsl -d ubuntu bash -c "curl https://www.google.com"

Drawbacks

• If the IP Address for the DNS server changes (reboot or needing to reauthenticate with AnyConnect) you’ll need to repeat just this section of the guide
  • My personal steps are to execute the disable script first then execute the enable script after

References:

• https://askubuntu.com/questions/1364984/dns-not-working-on-wsl
• https://gist.github.com/coltenkrauter/608cfe02319ce60facd76373249b8ca6