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All bytecode is sandboxed by definition -- the VM decides which operations it delegates to the system. It is possible (and common!) to use JVM bytecode in a VM

All bytecode is sandboxed by definition -- the VM decides which operations it delegates to the system. It is possible (and common!) to use JVM bytecode in a VM that restricts access to the underlying system, and in fact one of the original core use cases for Java (applets) relied on this functionality. The difference between WASM and JVM is that WASM was designed to be both (1) a compilation target for memory-unsafe languages like C, and (2) have verifiable control flow so it's easier to write a provably-secure JIT. > Because it's sandboxed, you can use it without a container. I think > that's what you don't seem to undestand. You don't seem to understand what a container is, or what a sandbox is. The reason to deploy software as a container image (instead of a standalone binary) is that a container image contains a full chroot, including auxiliary files that aren't embedded into the main binary. Whether the binary is native machine code or WASM doesn't matter -- the tradeoffs of bundling everything into one binary vs placing them on disk are the same regardless of executable format. The reason to run a sandbox is to restrict which system resources a process can access or interfere with. You can sandbox a process whether or not it runs in a container.

brabel 3y ago
I see you like to ignore reality and go on with your own definitions for things. > All bytecode is sandboxed by definition Oh my... you probably mean "all bytecode COULD be sandboxed"... try sandoboxing JVM bytecode... they tried that for years :D didn't quite work. > The reason to deploy software as a container image (instead of a standalone binary) is that a container image contains a full chroot, No. Stop trying to tell us what a container should be used for. A container's main usage nowadays is to run multiple isolated "processes" or set of processes in a safe manner, making the most of the hardware... coincidentally, you can also do that using WASM. Get over your outdated worldview, mate. EDIT: please read the link I provided. From the creators of Docker: "If WASM+WASI existed in 2008, we wouldn't have needed to create Docker." How does that align with your definition of what a container is or isn't?
- remexre 3y ago
  As an aside, to what degree does WASI exist _now_? The spec seems to be in a state of flux as to what the language the spec is written in is, and the language new proposals are written in seems to have grown futures? On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the latest draft spec doesn't look to have support for UDP or scalable notification (epoll, kqueue, etc.), so is that really what people are using their existing software with? Docker's great win is that you don't even need to recompile your software to use it, much less port it to what's essentially a new non-POSIX operating system.
  - jmillikin 3y ago
    > As an aside, to what degree does WASI exist _now_? It's ... rough. The impression I get (as an uninvolved third-party) is that the WASI folks set out with a goal of writing a sort of capability-based POSIX that they could write a thin libc for, but partway through realized that POSIX embeds a lot of assumptions that aren't compatible with portability or capability-based security. IMO (again, no direct involvement) a better approach would be to start with a low-level API that is capability-based from the beginning. Something like EFI, or (more experimentally) an RPC-oriented syscall API resembling Fuchsia/Plan9. Then the various sorts of magic integers and process state found in POSIX can be layered on top of that as a library. The good news is that the people working on WASI do seem aware of what they've gotten themselves into, and I think a lot of the chaos (shifting repos, broken docs, etc) is just the natural outcome of them exploring the solution space. My expectation is that they'll be forced to drift pretty far from POSIX if they want a workable design, but maybe they'll surprise us.
    - rapnie 3y ago
      Yes, a lot is in flux. Just now I bumped into https://wasix.org https://wasix.org which I have yet to figure out how it (will) fit(s).

brabel 3y ago

I see you like to ignore reality and go on with your own definitions for things. > All bytecode is sandboxed by definition Oh my... you probably mean "all bytecode COULD be sandboxed"... try sandoboxing JVM bytecode... they tried that for years :D didn't quite work. > The reason to deploy software as a container image (instead of a standalone binary) is that a container image contains a full chroot, No. Stop trying to tell us what a container should be used for. A container's main usage nowadays is to run multiple isolated "processes" or set of processes in a safe manner, making the most of the hardware... coincidentally, you can also do that using WASM. Get over your outdated worldview, mate. EDIT: please read the link I provided. From the creators of Docker: "If WASM+WASI existed in 2008, we wouldn't have needed to create Docker." How does that align with your definition of what a container is or isn't?

remexre 3y ago
As an aside, to what degree does WASI exist _now_? The spec seems to be in a state of flux as to what the language the spec is written in is, and the language new proposals are written in seems to have grown futures? On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the latest draft spec doesn't look to have support for UDP or scalable notification (epoll, kqueue, etc.), so is that really what people are using their existing software with? Docker's great win is that you don't even need to recompile your software to use it, much less port it to what's essentially a new non-POSIX operating system.
- jmillikin 3y ago
  > As an aside, to what degree does WASI exist _now_? It's ... rough. The impression I get (as an uninvolved third-party) is that the WASI folks set out with a goal of writing a sort of capability-based POSIX that they could write a thin libc for, but partway through realized that POSIX embeds a lot of assumptions that aren't compatible with portability or capability-based security. IMO (again, no direct involvement) a better approach would be to start with a low-level API that is capability-based from the beginning. Something like EFI, or (more experimentally) an RPC-oriented syscall API resembling Fuchsia/Plan9. Then the various sorts of magic integers and process state found in POSIX can be layered on top of that as a library. The good news is that the people working on WASI do seem aware of what they've gotten themselves into, and I think a lot of the chaos (shifting repos, broken docs, etc) is just the natural outcome of them exploring the solution space. My expectation is that they'll be forced to drift pretty far from POSIX if they want a workable design, but maybe they'll surprise us.
  - rapnie 3y ago
    Yes, a lot is in flux. Just now I bumped into https://wasix.org https://wasix.org which I have yet to figure out how it (will) fit(s).