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IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

includeos.org

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Re: IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

#81
post #20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jails and Zones are inferior to Docker overall, the advantage of Docker is not the isolation technology but the whole workflow of using those containers.

Jails, maybe. Zones, definitely not.

Zones are much more developed than jails, but not quite as flexible as lxc.

Re: IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

#82
post #5

Worth watching is Justin Cormack's recent presentation on unikernels, LinuxKit, eBPF and databases such as SeaStar: The Modern Operating System In 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR2FH8z7L04

Great talk! Thanks for sharing it.

Re: IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

#83
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jails, maybe. Zones, definitely not.

Zones are much more developed than jails, but not quite as flexible as lxc.

I did not know that, I thought lxc was behind zones in terms of features/flexibility.

Re: IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

#84
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zones are much more developed than jails, but not quite as flexible as lxc.

I did not know that, I thought lxc was behind zones in terms of features/flexibility.

From what I understand, Linux let’s you configure independent namespaces for network, disk, CPI, etc separately. Though sure entirely what lxc allows you to configure. Whereas zones have a more one-to-one mapping of namespaces so it’s easier to secure. Just what I picked up from using Joynet’s Triton system. I really enjoyed the zones interface on smartos, decent JSON api and cli tools, built from the ground up on ZFS datasets. Jails are terrible in comparison by not really having a good standard api interface, imho.

Re: IncludeOS – A minimal, resource efficient unikernel for cloud services

#85
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response confuses me so I must be misunderstanding it. Code is code, all I need is an indirect jump to a pointer somewhere in memory to run the arbitrary code I've installed to compromise the system, so why are unikernels not susceptible to this attack?

"arbitrary code I've installed" How do you do that if there is no facility to load and run code? That's what he's getting at, the binary installed has fixed functionality and has no facilities to do anything but what it's programmed to do. It may have no file system nor almost any other feature that an OS has. It likely supports network ports, but they are unlikely to allow arbitrary code execution becuase again, the…

Surely the moment I have a vulnerability that allows me to execute code (via a buffer overflow or similar) I have the ability to run the code that adds that feature?

In my understanding even if I have a piece of code that just loops printing "hello world" and nothing else if it's got a vulnerability that allows me to execute code all bets are off.

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