minikube on WSL now requires --force-systemd=true ?

[hinchliff]

What Happened?

I'm not sure what has changed, but previously i could run minikube start on WSL using Ubuntu 24.04, but that currently produces an error. running minikube start --force-systemd=true appears to fix the issue.

Without --force-systemd=true, minikube start would produce errors like the following:

❗ Enabling 'default-storageclass' returned an error: running callbacks: [sudo KUBECONFIG=/var/lib/minikube/kubeconfig /var/lib/minikube/binaries/v1.31.0/kubectl apply --force -f /etc/kubernetes/addons/storageclass.yaml: Process exited with status 1
stdout:

stderr:
error: error validating "/etc/kubernetes/addons/storageclass.yaml": error validating data: failed to download openapi: Get "https://localhost:8443/openapi/v2?timeout=32s": dial tcp [::1]:8443: connect: connection refused; if you choose to ignore these errors, turn validation off with --validate=false
]

I could not determine what was causing those issues. the only clue I found was when examining the docker logs for minikube, i saw these errors/warnings.

Detected virtualization wsl.
Detected architecture x86-64.
Failed to create symlink /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls: File exists
Failed to create symlink /sys/fs/cgroup/net_prio: File exists
Failed to create symlink /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu: File exists
Failed to create symlink /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct: File exists

The issue #8348 was one of the first search hits, and i decided to try running with --force-systemd=true, which ... appears to have fixed the issue.

Interestingly .. i can now run minikube start again without specifying --force-systemd=true every time?

Attach the log file

(failed)

Operating System

None

Driver

Docker