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Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

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Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#301

Post by LelouBil »

curt15 wrote: post #284
LelouBil wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is worse because using your package manager trusts your distribution (and the packages packager), doing curl bash trusts a random website. While in this case docker is not a random website, it's best to use the package manager when available

> Yes, it is worse because using your package manager trusts your distribution (and the packages packager), doing curl bash trusts a random website. Is installing docker from docker own APT repo actually safer than curling a binary from docker's website?

Like a sibling comment said, at least you can be sure that updates you will download are provided by the same entity, since the repositories are signed.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#302

Post by rafterydj »

l23k4 wrote: post #264
overfeed wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about my `~/.aws` and `~/.ssh` folders. People who use IDE-based AI tooling with IDEs that support dev-containers have no excuse for not leveraging dev containers, both for preventing agents losing your data and defending against secrets-harvesting supply-chain attacks

Using containers as a security boundary is inexcusable.

Could you elaborate on this?

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#303

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

gruez wrote: post #192
MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop spreading this toxic curl|sh nonsense. It's wildly corrosive to security and system stability.

Is it really that much worse than using a package manager that drops a binary that you're not going to inspect anyways?

Packages are signed, and contain manifests to check for file conflicts and help with cleanly uninstalling. The script installer might make bad assumptions during install that a package manager would catch.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#304

Post by smegger001 »

NotPractical wrote: post #206
HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait so just being lazy and using sudo on Docker commands instead of figuring things out actually means I'm being safer? awesome.

No, because a malicious AI agent could just replace the sudo binary in your path with one that collects your password and uses it to execute arbitrary code as root. Nothing short of sandboxing everything or just never using AI agents or proprietary software will prevent this.

Sigh. What ever happened to the principle of least privilege and why arent we applying it to AI agents. They ought to be locked in a box and not capable to act outside designated task.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#305

Post by overfeed »

l23k4 wrote: post #264
overfeed wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about my `~/.aws` and `~/.ssh` folders. People who use IDE-based AI tooling with IDEs that support dev-containers have no excuse for not leveraging dev containers, both for preventing agents losing your data and defending against secrets-harvesting supply-chain attacks

Using containers as a security boundary is inexcusable.

That entirely depends on one's threat-model. Also, containerization is 100x better than rawdogging.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#306

Post by fooker »

cauch wrote: post #282
fooker wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works great if it's one agent, absolutely doesn't if you want to tackle something complex that warrants using ..say.. ten agents. I can imagine a future where this technology empowers you to do things with a thousand agents.

You can have ten thousand agents, you will always have 1 agent in charge of, say, reading the file in a distant directory, and this agent (which will have minimal context) should be smart enough to realise that this action is unusual. I'm not sure what is your point: are you saying that in a multi-agent workflow, you will have one agent per letter read on the file? I would assume that each agent as a specific unitary…

No, you're missing the point.

The idea is not that you parallelize simple tasks. With a thousand agents, eventually, once we figure out how to orchestrate agents for real, you can tackle significantly more complex projects.

Here's a random example - writing an OS kernel from scratch, porting a good subset of Linux drivers automagically, developing a passable userspace, testing on ten VMs with different hardware configuration.

We can't do this yet, of course. But when we can, these thousand agents can't ask you every time something goes wrong. That just doesn't scale.

This 'getting stuck once every ten-fifteen minues' is very much the experience trying to develop complex software with codex or Claude code right now.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#307

Post by saidnooneever »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #140
Ajedi32 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why adding your user account to the docker group is a separate step that explicitly does not happen as part of the installation: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/ > Warning > The docker group grants root-level privileges to the user. For details on how this impacts security in your system, see Docker Daemon Attack Surface.

wait so just being lazy and using sudo on Docker commands instead of figuring things out actually means I'm being safer? awesome.

funily less is often more in security while ur devving. but its best to be aware rather than lucky :p

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#308

Post by moomin »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #274
moomin wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can. Would it surprise you to know that this, too, is often locked down?

That sounds terrible! Feels like your LLM agent probably has more control over your computer than you. Can't imagine being confined to a prison like that, but I suppose there are other aspects (monetary or otherwise) of the job that make up?

I can’t complain…

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#309

Post by iamjackg »

The same thing happened to me with Opus 4.8 just a few days ago. I was testing a script in a docker container which created a bunch of root-owned files, so Claude couldn't delete them. It tried sudo, but when that didn't work it just spun up an alpine docker container and deleted them through that.

Re: Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

#310

Post by JdeBP »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #80
toasty228 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My """ai""" just did something amazing, click to learn more 99% of the time it just read the man or some other form of documentation

Given how few people read documentation, that's still pretty amazing

Given that someone wrote this up directly as a recipe for agents to follow, and put it on the WWW where it has been scraped many times since 2025 no doubt, it's not that amazing.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48350964

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