boxxy
Dev tools
filesystem sandboxing
SHOW HN2023
How HN took it
15 positive, 34 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 8 critical, out of 57 comments about the project. Thread score +0.20.
Idea: 11 for, 4 againstExecution: 1 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful, clever idea for tidying home directory.
From 3 comments
This is awesome!! Good stuff
sureglymop on HNAmazing, I will use this for sure. My home directory is a mess.
29athrowaway on HNI'd been meaning to make something like this for ages but never had the patience to figure out the namespace API, great work!
yesco on HN
Objections
Mount-based approach may break tools or need recursive path handling.
From 1 comment
> This seems like a great idea, thank you for sharing. Thanks :D > Are you aware of any notable caveats to using Boxxy, given the mount-based implementation? System configuration…
notamy on HN
Unprivileged user namespaces break suid programs like sudo inside the box.
From 1 comment
but... if you use unprivileged user namespaces, tmux isn't a very good use, because then you can't use any suid programs like su, sudo, doas, pkexec, fusermount, mount (user), etc.
Hello71 on HN
Requests
Regex path rules.
From 1 comment
Can boxxy make use of rules with regex? If not, consider this a feature request.
jpeeler on HN
Automatic interception without shell aliases.
From 1 comment
> suggested usage > alias aws="boxxy aws" (repeat for other tools) If you could find a way to somehow intercept without requiring aliasing, this would be amazing. Also, as it is,…
OJFord on HN
Nix integration.
From 1 comment
It would be very nice to integrate it with Nix and make the hijacking automatic (perhaps with LD_LIBRARY_PATH).
pshirshov on HN
Questions
How does it differ from chroot and containers?
From 2 comments
Whats the difference between this and a chroot?
arberx on HNHow does this differ from containers?
jzombie on HN
Does it work with syncing home directories?
From 1 comment
This seems like a great idea, thank you for sharing. Are you aware of any notable caveats to using Boxxy, given the mount-based implementation? E.g., will this continue to work…
iamdamian on HN
Alternatives named
xdg-ninja
From 1 comment
If anyone would like to actually force the non-compliant applications to do the thing correctly, then xdg-ninja is your friend [0]. The script looks at all the dotfiles in the…
doodlesdev on HN
Symlink-based fake-home wrapper scripts.
From 1 comment
Plug: I made a small set of shell scripts to achieve something similar to this a couple of years ago, but with symlinks: https://tomwh.uk/blog/posts/2020/03/28/fake-home-prison/…
superluserdo on HN
Environment variables such as AWS_CONFIG_FILE.
From 1 comment
It looks like a useful project. By the way, as for the original motivation: > I recently had to use the AWS CLI. It wants to save data in ~/.aws, but I don't want it to just…
hdjjhhvvhga on HN
GNU stow.
From 1 comment
Whenever I install directly instead of using e.g. apt (typically because I want a more current version than the distro has), I use GNU stow [0], for precisely this reason. It…
jessaustin on HN