Share via

Regarding WSL Network and Docker Memory Consumption Following Windows Update

加藤 啓路 0 Reputation points
2025-11-14T10:31:08.7666667+00:00

I performed a Windows Update and upgraded to 24H2. At that time, communication between the host, WSL, and Docker started showing what appears to be IPv6 traffic. It normally uses IPv4. Also, when creating images and containers in Docker, it now consumes about 20GB of memory. Why is this happening?

Windows for home | Other | Windows update

2 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Deleted

    This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

    Comments have been turned off. Learn more

  2. Aron 7,000 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-11-14T14:26:41.3766667+00:00

    Hi, I understand how unexpected changes like this can catch you off guard.

    After the 24H2 update, WSL introduced mirrored networking, which enables IPv6 by default, so apps inside WSL and Docker may now prefer IPv6 even if you were using IPv4 before.

    On top of that, WSL2 dynamically allocates memory for its virtual machine and doesn’t release it until you shut it down, so when Docker builds large images, it can easily spike to 20GB or more.

    A quick way to manage this is to set limits in your .wslconfig file, for example, cap memory at 6GB and restart WSL with wsl --shutdown.

    Also, check your Docker Desktop version because some recent builds have memory leak issues; downgrading can help.

    Can you confirm if you’re using Docker Desktop with WSL2 integration and whether you’ve set any resource limits before?

    Regards,

    Aron

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.