Vscode-remote-release: Default shell not launched in remote

[aaronpowell]

If your default shell is not bash it will still launch bash in the terminal. If I open VS Code in Windows and configure the default terminal is WSL it will launch zsh.

• VSCode Version: 1.34.0-insider
• Local OS Version: 10.0.18362 N/A Build 18362
• Remote OS Version: WSL Ubuntu 18 - Linux DESKTOP-GR5DSKM 4.4.0-18362-Microsoft #1-Microsoft Mon Mar 18 12:02:00 PST 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• Remote Extension/Connection Type: WSL

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Launch WSL with a user who uses a shell other than bash as their default shell (eg: zsh)
2. Launch VS Code
3. Open VS Code terminal
4. See that the shell is bash not the default for the user

Does this issue occur when you try this locally?: Yes.
Does this issue occur when you try this locally and all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[aaronpowell]

A cascading problem that happens here is that because my aliases are in my .zshrc file they don't get loaded and things like docker (which I alias to docker.exe in Windows) don't work.

[TomFrost]

It's worth note that this is not a WSL problem, as it happens on any local system when you connect to a user@server that has a default shell other than bash. My remote machine is configured as @aaronpowell described -- zsh as the default shell with all my aliases and development tooling in my .zshrc. When I ssh into the box from a standard terminal window, I get zsh. When I connect from VSCode, I get bash and have to launch zsh manually.

[kieferrm]

I filed https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/44 for ssh.

[Tyriar]

I've looked into this a little bit and for the meantime the workaround is to open your remote settings and set a shell there.

{
  "terminal.integrated.shell.linux": "/bin/zsh"
}

[hologerry]

After set:

{
  "terminal.integrated.shell.linux": "/bin/zsh"
}

on remote server, still cannot connect it via macOS VS Code latest stable version.

But, I can connect the remote server via another Linux (Ubuntu) machine or Insider version without doing this.

[Tyriar]

@hologerry this issue was about getting the default shell to work when terminal.integrated.shell.linux is not set. It looks like you're probably setting it to /bin/zsh which does not exist on the local machine so it fails to set up the connection in a local terminal.

[hologerry]

@Tyriar Again this issue is caused by

  "terminal.integrated.env.osx": {
    "PATH": ""
  },

comment out this, the remote connection works ...
The PATH problem needs to be fixed in the next stable version(which is fixed in the insider version).

[hologerry]

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/70248#issuecomment-503488024