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File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

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Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#91

Post by masklinn »

joombaga wrote: post #83
masklinn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Windows subsystem[0] for [running] Linux [applications]. The terminology is "Windows subsystem for [target environment]" so "Windows subsystem for OS/2" lets you run OS/2 application on NT, "Windows subsystem for Win32" lets you run Win32 applications on NT, and "Windows subsystem for Linux" lets you run Linux applications on NT. [0] "The interface between user mode applications and operating system kernel fun…

Yet they chose different terminology for WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit), and chose to store 32-bit binaries in the WoW64 directory.

I don't know that Win64/WoW64 is a separate subsystem. I think it's a subset of the 64b version of the Win32 subsystem.

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#92

Post by richard_todd »

rubatuga wrote: post #51
Stubb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how Windows 10 is rapidly becoming a better Unix than MacOS since everything that matters runs Linux.

The irony is real. The only selling point for macOS right now is the unparalleled vertical integration, iCloud+ iPhone + Handoff etc. And also beautiful hardware that usually just works.

Yeah, as an iphone user it's the handoff stuff that keeps pulling me back to macOS. It's really handy, especially with cross-device cut and paste recently. However, I've also been using WSL and it has really impressed me. I need to check on the current state of similar windowsandroid stuff before my next round of purchases.

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#94

Post by signal11 »

masklinn wrote: post #74
nialv7 wrote: post #44

Windows subsystem for Linux? Or the Linux subsystem for Windows? These names are confusing...

It's a Windows subsystem[0] for [running] Linux [applications]. The terminology is "Windows subsystem for [target environment]" so "Windows subsystem for OS/2" lets you run OS/2 application on NT, "Windows subsystem for Win32" lets you run Win32 applications on NT, and "Windows subsystem for Linux" lets you run Linux applications on NT. [0] "The interface between user mode applications and operating system kernel fun…

The Architecture of Windows NT page on Wikipedia has a good diagram to help visualize NT subsystems. The first few versions of NT, iirc, shipped with the OS/2 subsystem but this was removed with Windows XP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#95

Post by barrkel »

mkup wrote: post #81
barrkel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH when I wanted to have pretty pictures on my lock screen but without the Microsoft ads, I needed to rely on Cygwin to blow away the folder that caches the pictures deep in ProgramData/.../SystemData/*/ReadOnly - the lock screen image setting API has a lot of bugs. Without Cygwin, I was fiddling with cacls and takeown in an elevated prompt trying to blow away the folder. An elevated Cygwin prompt and it was just r…

Sometimes elevated command prompt is not powerful enough and you need command prompt running from "SYSTEM" user account (Windows NT equivalent of Unix "root"). You can get that one with psexec tool from Microsoft SysInternals: psexec.exe -i -s -d %WINDIR%\System32\cmd.exe

There's no real equivalent of root on Windows. Accounts can have capabilities (pronounced 'privilege' [1]), and securable objects have ACLs and ownerships. Owners can replace ACLs, and a capability can give the ability to unilaterally change ownership[2]. And some of the more recent changes (to increase security for naive users) have been to disempower users and relinquish capabilities.

Accounts like SYSTEM may be functionally similar to root in so far as they may have the grant option on capabilities and thus have the keys to unlock powers, but good privilege separation design suggests that capabilities shouldn't be idly taken up.

Functionally, an elevated prompt had enough power to blow away the directory I wanted to delete - that is, the account had the capability to take ownership, replace ACLs, and then delete the objects - but following all the steps is fiddly. Cygwin abstracts all that away to the simplified POSIX system.

Something like SYSTEM may have been enough for different reasons; the existing ACLs may have permitted deletion to SYSTEM. But that doesn't mean SYSTEM had more intrinsic abilities (though I believe it does have more capabilities [2]).

[1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb5...

[2] SE_TAKE_OWNERSHIP_NAME in [1]

[3] Things like SE_TCB_NAME in [1], I think.

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#96

Post by rebootthesystem »

Is it at the point where one can, for example, use PyCharm to develop Python/Django sites residing in the Windowns file system (say, z:/sites/project_099) while hosting from WSL?

Or would it be treated more like a VM that you simply deploy to?

We currently run one or more Ubuntu server VM's per machine as needed for local testing. If needs go beyond that, we have physical (virtualized) servers on our network (for example, web and database servers).

I can see WSL possibly being good for local development if it can somehow integrate seamlessly with the Windows file system and various tools (PyCharm) can be setup to run on Windows yet talk to WSL. I guess this might be equivalent to running a remote interpreter.

Need to think about this a bit. Running a server or two on VMs is pretty clean and painless. On machines with 64 GB of memory you don't even know they are running (from a performance/resource perspective).

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#97

Post by beagle3 »

microtonal wrote: post #84
chx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least the big problem is malware. Running Arch Linux means I do not need to worry about malware. Ransomware. Crap like that. Yes, I am a reasonably experienced computer user and it's quite unlikely I would click anything "wrong" but not having to worry about a single bad click causing hours of recovery is a big plus. Edit: while I understand downvotes I would be much happier if you'd educate me where I am w…

Running Arch Linux means I do not need to worry about malware. Ransomware. Crap like that. I didn't downvote you and understand your concern. However, keep in mind that X11 has no GUI isolation. So, an attacker could snoop all your keyboard and mouse events, make screengrabs, etc. through a compromised web browser. Wayland provides GUI isolation, but is not widely deployed yet. Most X11 users are only safe because th…

That's true, but it only matters once the attacker manages to run code - which is significantly harder to achieve on Linux, due to diversity (opposite of win monoculture) and mostly sane defaults (no local directory in executable or dll search directory; file name not enough for execute permission).

Buffer overflows and targeted attacks are comparable in ease, but if you are not targeted, you are way safer on Linux.

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#98

Post by cryptonector »

ajross wrote: post #8
revelation wrote: post #2

I wonder if they have plans to add other emulation features, most importantly the ability to passthrough USB devices (or even graphic cards?). I don't need or want the Linux graphical interface of my VM, it's pretty much redundant, but I do need to make devices available to the Linux software. Otherwise it's a bit like emulating a microcontroller - sure, Turing says the thing can compute everything, but in a very pra…

Seems like you might be better served with a linux desktop and windows in a VM then. The use case for WSL right now is someone like a web developer. They can develop and debug node apps locally in their native environment.

Might a developer need to talk to something like a Yubico smartcard? Yes, yes they might.

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#99

Post by cryptonector »

rubatuga wrote: post #51
Stubb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how Windows 10 is rapidly becoming a better Unix than MacOS since everything that matters runs Linux.

The irony is real. The only selling point for macOS right now is the unparalleled vertical integration, iCloud+ iPhone + Handoff etc. And also beautiful hardware that usually just works.

MSFT are not the only ones in the Linux ABI emulation game. Illumos and FreeBSD are doing it too.

The Linux ABI is still a moving target, but it's moving much more slowly than a decade ago, so you can now expect every OS to start emulating it (warts and all).

Re: File System Improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#100

Post by noen »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #89
laumars wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a Windows-native SSHFS client[1]. I have it installed on a Win10 VM so can confirm it "works" albeit I haven't needed to use it for anything so cannot confirm how well it works. [1] https://github.com/Foreveryone-cz/win-sshfs I think is the currently maintained version but you're welcome to confirm that independently.

Any idea if filesystems mounted with that SSHFS client are now visible under WSL? They weren't in the original WSL release and I'm guessing aren't under the recent Creators Update release. But maybe they are with this new DrvFs?

Yes, they should be. They are (under the covers) mounted as network shares, so they should now appear with DrvFs.
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