[ruby-talk:6319] Re: Q: Sandbox security, SAFE and system

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Dave Thomas wrote:

> Robert Feldt <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
> > I'm trying to understand SAFe and tainting in Ruby but I can't see how it
> > can help me create a "sandbox" for constrained execution of scripts and
> > apps not in my direct control. I would like to limit the files a script
> > (and any processes it might spawn/fork etc.) can access and write to a
> > specified sub-directory, but I guess it's out of reach for Ruby's tainting
> > and SAFE model?
> 
> If you're on a Unix box, could you use Dir.chroot?
>
Probably, but I need something that is at least portable to Windows
2000 (win2k+cygwin ok?!). Preferably to other Ruby exec 
environments. Wouldn't it be nice to have a sandbox extension so that you
could have this kind of func available regardless of platform and level of
priviliges?

What about wrapping something along the lines:
	* redefine file/dir related Ruby funcs and make sure they operate
	  within a subdir
	* freeze File and Dir so that they cannot be tampered with
	* disallow syscall's that could start apps
in an extension with an interface a la:

Sandbox.new do 
  # Run potentially dangerous code...
end

Is it possible or will there be obvious security holes?

Thanks,

Robert