Minijail

On Linux hosts, crosvm uses minijail to sandbox the child devices. The minijail C library is utilized via a Rust wrapper so as not to repeat the intricate sequence of syscalls used to make a secure isolated child process. The fact that minijail was written, maintained, and continuously tested by a professional security team more than makes up for its being written in an memory unsafe language.

The exact configuration of the sandbox varies by device, but they are mostly alike. See create_base_minijail from linux/jail_helpers.rs. The set of security constraints explicitly used in crosvm are:

  • PID Namespace
    • Runs as init
  • Deny setgroups
  • Optional limit the capabilities mask to 0
  • User namespace
    • Optional uid/gid mapping
  • Mount namespace
    • Optional pivot into a new root
  • Network namespace
  • PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS
  • seccomp with optional log failure mode
  • Limit to number of file descriptors