← Back to context

Comment by foresto

4 hours ago

Can fence wrap applications that do their namespace-based sandboxing?

This could allow finer control than the application's own sandbox offers. For example, Flatpak apps run in bubblewrap containers with all-or-nothing network permissions. Being able to restrict access by domain name would be useful.

Unfortunately nested bubblewrap sandboxes don't work.

When you run `fence flatpak run <app>`, Fence creates a bwrap sandbox with its own user namespace, Flatpak then tries to create another user namespace inside, so you'd get something like `bwrap: setting up uid map: Permission denied`.

The outer sandbox doesn't grant the capability for nested namespace creation (otherwise it would defeat much of the security), so Fence can't wrap Flatpak (or similar namespace-based sandbox tools) in a useful way. Ideally you'd need something at the network level outside any sandbox.

That said, open to suggestions if anyone knows of a feasible solution.