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How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

fuchsia.googlesource.com

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Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#11

Post by chii »

awordnot wrote: post #7
joshumax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices, which tend to lack a secure, lightweight OS with a unified API. Reverse engineering a certain "smart" nightlight uncovered a minimal Linux 2.6.xx rootfs with telnet open and enabled by default

What does that have to do with Linux though? Surely it's the manufacturer's fault for leaving telnet open and not updating? How would a new OS solve any of these issues?

by making these services an OS level concern, the device manufacturer can't screw anything up anymore.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#12

Post by mehrdada »

pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

Probably the same purpose Singularity served for Microsoft. Researchers gotta research.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#13

Post by remir »

joshumax wrote: post #5
pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices, which tend to lack a secure, lightweight OS with a unified API. Reverse engineering a certain "smart" nightlight uncovered a minimal Linux 2.6.xx rootfs with telnet open and enabled by default

Take a look at the repo. Fuchsia is an OS for mobile devices. The UI is clearly made for phones, they use the Flutter framework, which was made specifically for mobile app development and can target iOS and Android too.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#14

Post by themacguffinman »

pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

Fuchsia uses a microkernel (Magenta) which is more secure and technically elegant, but usually comes at the cost of performance.

Google's position as the primary/sole developer of Fuchsia also gives them the control to build the OS in commercially lucrative ways that don't necessarily earn the approval of the Linux open source community (programming shortcuts, proprietary/non-GPL extensions, etc).

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#15

Post by tyingq »

remir wrote: post #13
joshumax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices, which tend to lack a secure, lightweight OS with a unified API. Reverse engineering a certain "smart" nightlight uncovered a minimal Linux 2.6.xx rootfs with telnet open and enabled by default

Take a look at the repo. Fuchsia is an OS for mobile devices. The UI is clearly made for phones, they use the Flutter framework, which was made specifically for mobile app development and can target iOS and Android too.

Perhaps. The current set of boot instructions are for a NUC desktop, a laptop, and 2 ARM dev boards though. https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/magenta/+/master/docs/targe...

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#16

Post by djsumdog »

catern wrote: post #8
pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

>open source platforms Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... Edit: This isn…

Companies are embracing open source these days, but not the GPL. We see that with gcc and clang, or in the way MacOS uses older versions of tools just to avoid GPLv3:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-...

The OSS utopia pushed in the the 1990s, with tools like Gimp being one day comparable to Photoshop, never really happened.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#17

Post by catern »

djsumdog wrote: post #16
catern wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>open source platforms Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... Edit: This isn…

Companies are embracing open source these days, but not the GPL. We see that with gcc and clang, or in the way MacOS uses older versions of tools just to avoid GPLv3: http://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-... The OSS utopia pushed in the the 1990s, with tools like Gimp being one day comparable to Photoshop, never really happened.

OK, but that's irrelevant.

Kernels are an entirely different class of thing. I'm fine with permissive licenses for higher-level software such as clang or GIMP.

But I'm not looking forward to a world where I can't get the source code for a kernel that will actually run on real hardware.

It's already painful to compile and run Android from source. Fuschia will make it just impossible.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#18

Post by dikaiosune »

tyingq wrote: post #15
remir wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the repo. Fuchsia is an OS for mobile devices. The UI is clearly made for phones, they use the Flutter framework, which was made specifically for mobile app development and can target iOS and Android too.

Perhaps. The current set of boot instructions are for a NUC desktop, a laptop, and 2 ARM dev boards though. https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/magenta/+/master/docs/targe...

The hardware in that Acer laptop looks surprisingly similar to what a current flagship phone has in terms of resources if not exact architecture.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#20

Post by jnwatson »

pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

It looks to be a capability-based microkernel in the spirit of L4 and Green Hills' Integrity.
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