A general-purpose lightweight sandbox for safely executing user programs. safeexec provides a sandbox environment which you can set limits on system resources like memory, cpu time effectively preventing intended or unintented breach of system. However, running untrusted code on your server should be taken at your own risk.

• Safeexec forks child process.
• Sets various limitations on the child process via setrlimit. So safeexec should have setuid bit on, and uid root.
• Parent process polls memory usage looking into /proc filesystem on linux or via kvm on freebsd.
• Wall clock limit is enforced with alarm() & signal().
• Reports usage stats to stdout or file specified by --usage argument.

Resource usage is in 4 line plain text.

For memory limit:

Memory Limit Exceeded
elapsed time: 0 seconds
memory usage: 32884 kbytes
cpu usage: 0.416 seconds

For time limit:

Time Limit Exceeded
elapsed time: 2 seconds
memory usage: 1424 kbytes
cpu usage: 1.000 seconds

File write attempt:

Command exited with non-zero status (1)
elapsed time: 0 seconds
memory usage: 64 kbytes
cpu usage: 0.000 seconds

Running it with no argument gives:

usage: ./safeexec <options> --exec <command>
Available options:
	--cpu     <seconds>           Default: 1 second(s)
	--mem     <kbytes>            Default: 32768 kbyte(s)
	--space   <kbytes>            Default: 0 kbyte(s)
	--uids    <minuid> <maxuid>   Default: 5000-65535
	--minuid  <uid>               Default: 5000
	--maxuid  <uid>               Default: 65535
	--core    <kbytes>            Default: 0 kbyte(s)
	--nproc   <number>            Default: 0 proccess(es)
	--fsize   <kbytes>            Default: 8192 kbyte(s)
	--stack   <kbytes>            Default: 8192 kbyte(s)
	--clock   <seconds>           Wall clock timeout (default: 10)
	--usage   <filename>          Report statistics to ... (default: stderr)
	--chroot  <path>              Directory to chrooted (default: /tmp)
	--error   <path>              Print stderr to file (default: /dev/null)

Keep in mind that --exec must be last option.

For compiled languages like C or C++ you can set strict memory limitation. But for interpreted languages(python, ruby, java etc..) you can't set strict memory limits. Instead you have to give big enough memory that your language can load.

Safeexec runs users program as a random uid. Default gid/uid range is: 5000-65535. So please check if any uid in this range is in use. If then you can chage the range with arguments. --minuid and --maxuid. Whole user range is treated as "unpriviliged" ("other" for all files).

On Freebsd network access blocked by setting limit on socket buffer size. But on Linux it doesn't block network access. Use other tools(iptables,..) for network access blockage.

Maximum number of open files is not limited because vm(java) or interpreted(ruby, python) languages open a lots of files.

From ubuntu's BasicChroot page:

A chroot is basically a special directory on your computer which prevents applications, if run from inside that directory, from accessing files outside the directory. In many ways, a chroot is like installing another operating system inside your existing operating system. Technically-speaking, chroot temporarily changes the root directory (which is normally /) to the chroot directory (for example, /var/chroot). As the root directory is the top of the filesystem hierarchy, applications are unable to access directories higher up than the root directory, and so are isolated from the rest of the system. This prevents applications inside the chroot from interfering with files elsewhere on your computer.

You can use safeexec without chroot if your OS doesn't allow arbitrary users to write filesystems.

Clone this repository and run:

% cmake .
% make

You'll need root to install binary to set root setuid bit.

% sudo make install

% sudo make permission && make test

Running tests...
Test project /usr/home/ochko/safeexec
    Start 1: memory-limit-exceeded
1/8 Test #1: memory-limit-exceeded ............   Passed    1.16 sec
    Start 2: time-limit-exceeded
2/8 Test #2: time-limit-exceeded ..............   Passed    2.10 sec
    Start 3: output-limit-exceeded
3/8 Test #3: output-limit-exceeded ............   Passed    2.10 sec
    Start 4: fork-attemp
4/8 Test #4: fork-attemp ......................   Passed    0.59 sec
    Start 5: file-write-attemp
5/8 Test #5: file-write-attemp ................   Passed    0.13 sec
    Start 6: file-read-attemp
6/8 Test #6: file-read-attemp .................   Passed    0.13 sec
    Start 7: return-code
7/8 Test #7: return-code ......................   Passed    0.13 sec
    Start 8: wall-time-limit-exceeded
8/8 Test #8: wall-time-limit-exceeded .........   Passed    3.13 sec

100% tests passed, 0 tests failed out of 8

Total Test time (real) =   9.48 sec

• Use getrusage for getting memory usage(becase this is same on both bsd and linux)
• Fix file read/write permissions on linux when file owner is test runner and group permission is on:
  • can read chmod 0640 file, but can't read 0620 file.
  • can write chmod 0620 file, but can't write 0644 file.
• Use Getopt similar argument parsing library.

• FreeBSD support

• Fix linux specifics

• chmod/chown task for cmake
• Add more test

• Introduce cmake
• Terminate only process under controll. kill(pid,..) instead of kill(-1,...)

• Apparmor profile for linux file read/write permission workaround.
• setgit to protect files with group permission
• Redirect stderr of user program

• Add address space limit
• Error handling for permission setter

• FreeBSD support using kvm.h
• Add some error handling

• Copied from mooshak's SafeExec.
• Add chroot feature

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) Lkhagva Ochirkhuyag, 2009-2015

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.