71–80 of 380 posts
A memory safe linux kernel would be a fairly incredible thing. If you could snap your fingers and have it, the wins would be huge. Consider that right now a docker container can't be relied upon to contain arbitrary malware, exactly because the Linux kernel has so many security issues and they're exposed to containers. The reason why a VM like Firecracker is so much safer is that it removes the kernel as the primary…
I love it and hope it will catch on. I reminds me of what Linus Torvalds once said when asked about fearing competition, though. From my memory his answer was something like: I really like writing device drivers. Few people like that and until someone young and hungry comes along who likes that I'm not afraid of competition.
But GPU drivers require a fairly big team. We must have a GPU hardware programming "standard" first. And I would favor a risc-v kernel instead to avoid the dependency on a super complex syntax (rust) compiler and do gcc-dependency-like mistake all over again. For this reason, eating the bullet and moving on a modern worldwide standard ISA would actually be the real move forward. We have already linux and others tied…
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> Memory safety is the primary issue with containers as a security boundary. I don't know where you're getting your information, but this is NOT the consensus on the LMKL, among most Linux kernel people or at any serious large scale tech company. If you wish to learn about this stuff, lwn.net has a good series of articles on the problems people are actually working on. Most of the problems are related to namespace co…
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Container vulnerabilities are rarely related to memory bugs. Most vulnerabilities in container deployments are due to logical bugs, misconfiguration, etc. C-level memory stuff is absolutely NOT the reason why virtualization is safer, and not something Rust would greatly improve. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have hardware vulnerabilities that Rust also wouldn't help you with. Rust is a good language and I…
> Container vulnerabilities are rarely related to memory bugs. The easiest way to escape a container is through exploitation of the Linux kernel via a memory safety issue. > C-level memory stuff is absolutely NOT the reason why virtualization is safer Yes it is. The point of a VM is that you can remove the kernel as a trust boundary because the kernel is not capable of enforcing that boundary because of memory safety…
Yes, I literally led a team of people at a FAANG doing this.
You're saying the easiest way to escape a container is a vulnerability normally priced over 1 million USD. I'm saying the easiest way is through one of the million side channels.
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This is getting a bit defensive. I think people are interpreting your post as saying all safety is guaranteed by using memory safety, but you rightly walk it back in comments to mean it addresses "primary" security problems. That's it.
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> Container vulnerabilities are rarely related to memory bugs. The easiest way to escape a container is through exploitation of the Linux kernel via a memory safety issue. > C-level memory stuff is absolutely NOT the reason why virtualization is safer Yes it is. The point of a VM is that you can remove the kernel as a trust boundary because the kernel is not capable of enforcing that boundary because of memory safety…
> I don't know what your point is here. Do you spend a lot of time in your career thinking about hardening your containers against kernel CVEs? Yes, I literally led a team of people at a FAANG doing this. You're saying the easiest way to escape a container is a vulnerability normally priced over 1 million USD. I'm saying the easiest way is through one of the million side channels.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Container vulnerabilities are rarely related to memory bugs. The easiest way to escape a container is through exploitation of the Linux kernel via a memory safety issue. > C-level memory stuff is absolutely NOT the reason why virtualization is safer Yes it is. The point of a VM is that you can remove the kernel as a trust boundary because the kernel is not capable of enforcing that boundary because of memory safety…
> I don't know what your point is here. Do you spend a lot of time in your career thinking about hardening your containers against kernel CVEs? Yes, I literally led a team of people at a FAANG doing this. You're saying the easiest way to escape a container is a vulnerability normally priced over 1 million USD. I'm saying the easiest way is through one of the million side channels.
I'm not looking to argue, I was just annoyed that I was getting so many of the same comments. It's too early for all of this negativity.
If you want to discuss this via an avenue that is not HN I would be open to it, I'm not looking to make enemies here, I'd rather have an earnest conversation with a colleague rather than jumping down their throats because they caught me in the middle of an annoying conversation.
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Good that I did a CTRL+F before posting. It indeed seems to be a trend to try and supplant GPL software that has served well for decades with hip and trendy probably safer software, that meeeerely has a small catch ... MIT license. I wonder how these projects even attract enough people to be developed. Especially developers of a kernel should be aware of the license side of things, that has protected us all.
Luckily, most Linux alternatives seem to go absolutely nowhere, so I doubt this project will have much of an impact beyond people thinking "huh, cool project".
A memory safe linux kernel would be a fairly incredible thing. If you could snap your fingers and have it, the wins would be huge. Consider that right now a docker container can't be relied upon to contain arbitrary malware, exactly because the Linux kernel has so many security issues and they're exposed to containers. The reason why a VM like Firecracker is so much safer is that it removes the kernel as the primary…
No, Docker container was never meant for that. Never use containers with untrustable binary. There is Vagrant and others for that.