VeraCrypt under Windows using wsl

VeraCrypt is software that allows you to create an encrypted virtual file system in an unencrypted disk drive. The host system sees this as a single large file, and only when VeraCrypt is started are those files decrypted and accessible.

Are you running a Windows computer where you don't have enough permissions to run VeraCrypt? Maybe you don't trust Windows to limit application access to those files once decrypted?

Whatever the reason, here's how to do it.

First, you need to check the OS and version of your WSL. You can check it easily:

cat /etc/issue
Debian GNU/Linux 12 \n \l

Then go to the VeraCrypt download page and download the correct version. I'll download only the console .deb package, since I use Debian.

wget https://launchpad.net/veracrypt/trunk/1.26.24/+download/veracrypt-console-1.26.24-Debian-12-amd64.deb

And install it:

sudo dpkg -i veracrypt-console-1.26.24-Debian-12-amd64.deb 

If you get a warning message telling you that the libfuse2 package is not installed, just install it, and reinstall VeraCrypt using the above command.

sudo apt install libfuse2

Now you can use the veracrypt command interactively to mount or unmount an encrypted file system.

# mounting
veracrypt --mount /fie_name.vc /mnt/your_mount_location
# ummounting
veracrypt -d /mnt/your_mount_location

If you are trying to mount to a target folder residing on a Windows drive, you may need to install an additional package to handle an NTFS file system.

sudo apt install ntfs-3g

After that, you should be able to mount and access even a target Windows directory.

If you prefer to access the mount location from Windows too and to give it a nice Windows drive letter, you need a few more steps.

First, make sure you mount your filesystem directly in the WSL filesystem:

sudo mkdir /mnt/crypt
sudo chown your_user:your_group /mnt/crypt
veracrypt --mount /mnt/c/filisystem.vc /mnt/crypt

Then you can go to Windows and mount it temporarily as a drive, using the native Windows WSL virtual network drive:

subst x: \\wsl.localhost\Debian\mnt\crypt

The subst-ed drive will survive until the next Windows reboot. If you need a permanent solution, you'll need to map it as a network drive.