n8n WSL Exec Node

This community node for n8n allows you to execute commands within a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) container directly from your n8n workflow. It is designed to be run on an n8n instance hosted on a Windows machine.

Features

• Execute any command inside a specified WSL container.
• Automatically discovers and lists available WSL containers.
• Set a starting directory for your command.
• Provide arguments for your command.
• Stream stdout and stderr back to the n8n workflow.
• Ability to execute tasks under different users such as root, www-data, etc (leave blank for default user).
• Supports all WSL distros

Installation

1. Go to Settings > Community Nodes in your n8n instance.
2. Select Install.
3. Search for n8n-nodes-wsl-exec and click Install.

Configuration

• WSL2 Container: Choose from a dropdown list of automatically detected WSL containers, or manually type the name of the container.
• Start Directory: The directory where the command should be executed. Defaults to ~/ (the user's home directory).
• Command: The command to execute (e.g., ls, echo "Hello", python3).
• Arguments: Any arguments to pass to the command, separated by spaces (e.g., -l -a, my_script.py --verbose).
• Ignore Startup Output: If your .bashrc or other shell startup scripts produce output (like neofetch), enable this option to ignore it and only capture the output of the command itself.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or Windows 11 with n8n installed on the host machine. n8n should not be installed in a container
• Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL/WSL2) Installed and at least one WSL instance setup

Example Usage

To run a Python script inside a WSL container named Ubuntu:

1. Set WSL2 Container to Ubuntu.
2. Set Command to python3.
3. Set Arguments to /path/to/your/script.py.

The node will output the stdout, stderr, and exitCode from the executed command.

Source Code

The source code for this node is available on GitHub: https://github.com/KeithIMyers/n8n-wsl-exec