Setting up Meshery Development Environment on Windows

You can use one of the following three approaches to setup a Meshery development environment in Windows:

  1. Using WSL or WSL2 (Recommended)
  2. Natively (directly) on Windows
  3. Using Hyper-V to create a Linux VM

Setting up a Meshery development environment on WSL(2) or Hyper-V is not much different from setting up on a native Linux platform. The same instructions can be followed as already documented.

All three methods require the same prerequisites mentioned below in the Prerequisites section but the Linux-based methods/platforms come with some of the prerequisites pre-installed and have no issues with Linux style commands making it easier to setup the environment.

Additionally, all three require methods will require access to a Kubernetes cluster which can be a kind, minikube, Kubernetes in Docker or a cluster elsewhere with network access.

Prerequisites

All three methods require the following prerequisites:

  • make
  • gcc
  • nodejs (for npm)
  • go
  • Git or Git Bash
  • Visual Studio Code for development

Compatibility

The following minimum Windows build versions are required:

Name Version
WSL1 x64 - Windows 7
WSL2 x64 - Version 1903, Build 18362; ARM 64 - Version 2004, Build 19041
Custom Kernel Build 18945
Kernel with K8s required modules Build 19013

Note
Run the following command on Powershell to check your Windows build and version:


 
[System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version

Using WSL2

Here is a link to setting up WSL2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

Once WSL is setup, login to the WSL distribution and use the steps for Linux to setup the development environment.

Steps

Perform the following steps in order:

1. Enable and configure Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Open Powershell in administrator mode and run:



dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

Restart-Computer

For more information visit How to install Linux on Windows with WSL.

2. Configuring WSL

Enable VM (Virtual Machine) feature. To do so open PowerShell in administrator mode and run:



dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Ensure WSL2 is the default version:



wsl --set-default-version 2

3. Install a new distro

Refer to the instructions here to install a new distro such as Ubuntu by default. Feel free to use any distro of your choice.

4. Enable Docker

The Docker Desktop application for Windows includes a comprehensive set of tools, including Docker Engine, Docker CLI client, Docker Compose, Notary, Kubernetes, and a Credential Helper.

Windows 10 Version Docker Desktop
Pro/Education/Enterprise Docker Desktop for Windows Pro
Home Docker Desktop for Windows Home

Natively on Windows

This approach can be the most challenging to setup among all and is recommended for users that are very conversant with setting up development environments in Windows. make, gcc and the other prerequisites do not come pre-installed on Windows and hence these need to be installed manually. You will also need to set the Path in Environment Variables for some of them like make and gcc.

Installing prerequsites:

Here are some links and recommendations to install the prerequisites:

- make

Use the setup program to download the installation package and run it to install make and other dependencies.

If the download link fails, visit the home page at https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/make.htm

- gcc

Use the mingw-w64 project for gcc. The pre-built binaries can be downloaded from https://github.com/niXman/mingw-builds-binaries/releases. For a typical 64-bit Windows, it is of the **x8664-XX.X.X-release-posix-seh-ucrt-XX_XXX-XXXX.7z** format. Posix provides cross-platform compatibility and is known to work well. After extracting and copying (typically to the C:\ drive at root), add the path to the Path variable in _Environment Variables.

For example, here’s a direct download link to the latest release as of this writing. After installing, ensure the path is in the Path variable in Environment Variables. It is usually added automatically.

The Cygwin project is known to fail with errors.

For more information, visit https://gcc.gnu.org/install/binaries.html

- nodejs (for npm)

You will need Node 20. Download it from https://nodejs.org/en/download and install it. The path is usually automatically added.

- go

Visit https://go.dev/doc/install to download and install Go. Please use the version specified in the project’s go.mod file. As of this writing, Meshery uses 1.25.5. The path is usually automatically added.

- Git Bash

Git Bash is a terminal emulator which provides git and Linux-like command line experience. You can download it from: https://git-scm.com/downloads.

Verify prerequisites

Launch Git Bash, PowerShell or VS Code Terminal and run the following commands to ensure prerequisites are met:



make --version




gcc --version




node --version




go version

If any of these result in command not found error, check if the PATH in environment variables has been set properly. To launch the environment variables window Here’s an example:

You are now ready to contribute to Meshery.

Using Hyper-V to install a linux VM

Here is a link to install linux VM using Hyper-V: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hyper-V

Get the code

  • Fork and then clone the Meshery repository 
    $ git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/meshery