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How to Use SecureCRT's Local Shell Feature To Connect Directly to WSL Distributions

If you have WSL distributions installed on your Windows machine, SecureCRT can be configured to connect directly to an available WSL distribution by using the Local Shell protocol.

To configure a SecureCRT session to connect to your default WSL distribution:

1. Create a new session in SecureCRT with the Protocol set to:
Local Shell

2. In the Session Options, Connection / Local Shell category, set the Shell path to:
C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe

3. Save your changes.

You should now have a session manager entry that will automatically connect you to your default WSL distribution. Feel free to rename the session to something like:

To configure a SecureCRT session to connect to a non-default WSL distribution:

1. Create a new session in SecureCRT with the Protocol set to:
Local Shell

2. In the Session Options, Connection / Local Shell category, set the Shell path to:
C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe

1. In the Arguments field, specify -d followed by the name of the distribution you want to initialize. For example:
-d Ubuntu-20.04

What about SecureCRT 9.4 and earlier versions?

For Windows versions of SecureCRT prior to 9.5.x which still support the Local Shell protocol, you could potentially get a local shell connected to a WSL instance by setting the Shell to CMD.exe (or PowerShell.exe, if that's your preference), and then use SecureCRT's Logon Actions Expect/Send functionality to drive the process of launching from the command line the wsl command with your desired non-default WSL distribution as shown below.