[pypy-dev] Sandboxing in Pypy and Crunchy

[Carl Friedrich Bolz]

Hi André,

I'm trying to clear up some confusion:

Andre Roberge wrote:
[snip]
> On Dec 9, 2007 6:04 PM, Laura Creighton <lac at openend.se> wrote:
>> the student's code run?  On the student's machine? or on the teacher's
>> server machine?
> 
> Right now Crunchy is primarily used in a single user environment.  It
> would be possible to host it on a server, but it would be very
> insecure to do so.  Ideally it should be hosted in a secure way on a
> server in most situations.
> 
>> The ability to sandbox is a property of the architecture of pypy.
>> It's not a module that you could port to Cpython.  The person you
>> want to sandbox has to be running pypy.
>>
> 
> Darn :(    I was hoping I could somehow just call a sandboxed
> interpreter module ....

The sandboxed PyPy Python interpreter needs to be controlled by an 
external Python interpreter to provide the virtual environment for the 
sandbox. This external interpreter can be a completely normal CPython. 
ASCII diagram:

+-----------------------------------------+
| controlling Python interpreter (CPython)|
+-----------------------------------------+
        |                   ^
        | all communication |
        v                   |
+----------------------------------+
| sandboxed PyPy Python interpreter|
+----------------------------------+


the two boxes are different processes. With a bit of effort, the view of 
the controlling Python on the sandboxed interpreter can be that of a 
simple module that provides a sandboxed way to execute Python code. 
There is also no reason why the outer process cannot control more than 
one sandboxed interpreter. Therefore the answer to your question might 
be yes. Deployment-wise it doesn't behave much like an extension module 
though: You have a bit of pure-Python code for the upper interpreter 
plus a binary with a full Python interpreter.

> Then again, it means that I'll have to try
> pypy myself, and play with it - something I meant to do ... but did
> not for lack of time. It also makes it more of a burden on potential
> users  if they have to install pypy in addition to Crunchy.

Yes, probably. However, you just need this solution only if you want the 
Python code to run on a server, not if the Python code runs on the users 
machine.

Cheers,

Carl Friedrich