Re: Capsicum for Linux?

Reviving very old discussion :-)

On 8 January 2014 22:29, Guido Witmond <guido-EBfTt96odT/[email protected]> wrote:
> On 01/08/14 22:04, Nigel Williams wrote:
>> Via the popular news channels, Google has sponsored a port of Capsicum
>> to Linux, details here:
>>
>
>>
>> What do cap-talkers think of capsicum generally? lipstick-on-a-pig or
>> butterfly from a chrysalis?
>
> I'll go with the lipstick-on-a-pig category. Posix is not designed with
> strong security.
>
> Capsicum is a great development. However, I think it came too late. If
> it was there, say 10 years ago, it would have been adopted by Debian and
> Red Hat, and from there in the rest of the Linux-world.
>
> On the server side we see lots of effort to compartmentalize each and
> every service into a separate VM. Examples are: LXC, SmartOS, Docket.io,
> and many more.
>
> On the client we need something much stronger than Capsicum. We need
> Polaris, Genode, Qubes-OS. IE, desktop (tablet) OSes that really use the
> POLA-design. That's 20 years overdue.
>
> We NEED to go to microkernels. Tanenbaum was right.

Not sure how this makes Tanenbaum right, but whatever. On
microkernels, there's still the question of migration path. I think
the CHERI work we're doing at Cambridge offers some interesting
possibility in that direction. That is, start with a standard OS,
gradually move parts of it out into their own compartments. Allow apps
to communicate directly without the OS in the middle.

> Although, if Google would incorporate Capsicum in Android, it would make
> a big improvement on short term. Go for it.

In general, Google won't incorporate anything in anything if we don't
first get it upstreamed, so that's the challenge.

>
> Regards, Guido.
>
>
>
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