Kind of.

Copyfail would punch through user namespaces to get root straight on the host. User namespaces only really protect you against vulnerabilities in non kernel applications.

Limited capibilities/seccomp policies did help, though. In my admittedly limited testing, some of the vulnerabilities wouldn't work in podman, but they would work in docker. This wasn't due to user namespaces, but this was due to podman having stricter capibilities/seccomp policies than docker by default.

This implies that even if you were using docker rootless, they still would have been able to break out and get root in one go.

User namespaces don't add that much security, in my opinion. Assuming your container has a non root user inside, adding user namespaces just changes the amount of cve's/zerodays from 2 to maybe 3:

With a rootful container it's:

• Escalate to root (can be done after or before container escape)
• Escape container (can be done after or before escalation to root)

With user namespaces it becomes:

• Maybe escalate to root within the container first to get privileges or access to binaries needed to take advantage of a container escape exploit
• Escape container
• Escalate to root

User namespaces are like every other Linux security solution, they are extremely complex, hard to configure, and they don't actually add that much security for the trouble The article I linked above has a section about them:

Another example of these features is user namespaces. User namespaces allow unprivileged users to interact with lots of kernel code that is normally reserved for the root user. It adds a massive amount of networking, mount, etc. functionality as new attack surface. It has also been the cause of numerous privilege escalation vulnerabilities, which is why many distributions, such as Debian, had started to restrict access to this functionality by default

Their complexity makes them difficult to secure and execute properly, and adds a ton of attack surface to the kernel.

Dirty frag, for example, was using user namespaces as one of the ways it would escalate. Most container runtimes restrict user namespace creation within user namespaced containers (via seccomp/capabilities), so running dirtyfrag in a container wouldn't have worked. But, at the same time, dirtyfrag is only possible in the first place because of the attack surface user namespaces cause.

I mostly use docker and rootfull podman for everything. You already need a CVE/zeroday to do a container break out in the first place, so just keep your runtimes up to date and you should be good. If you really care about being proactive with security, and trying to preemptively prevent issues, user namespaces are not really a good solution, better is just to use a VM container runtime like kata or microvm, or a userspace kernel like gvisor or syd. They are pretty easy to use. You can just set them as your container runtime, in docker, podman, or kubes, and things will mostly just work. Those (and other kernel isolation solutions) would have actually beaten dirtyfrag, copyfail, and the like of recent vulns.

Unfortunately, the browser extension is proprietary. They used to have an open source one but they stopped maintaining it.

Proprietary was a dealbreaker for me. There is no way to verify that it isn't selling everything I type even if I do have it configured to point at a local server.

I'm also concerned that the extension may eventually no longer work against local servers as well.

https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool-browser-addon/issues/247

As an alternative, there is harper by wordpress: https://github.com/Automattic/harper

It is webassembly and runs entirely in your browser.

EDIT:

I will add that the rest of the languagetool ecosystem continues to work fine. Libreoffice now has a built in client, which you can point at your own hosted server. VSCode [1] also has their own languagetool extension. I use those and those work great. But in the browser I use ~~harper~~ nothing. I should probably install harper.

[1] Well, technically I use [code-oss]https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Visual_Studio_Code), which gets the extension from https://open-vsx.org/

1. It's extraordinarily complex.

The reality is that security is not just technical implementation, but also actually getting people to use the solutions. "Stop disabling SELinux" is not a real answer to when people disable it, like we have one person in this thread.

Another problem with complex security solutions is they are hard to get right. Even if you enable them and configure them, without being an expert, it's possible you left a gap here or there, and holes and gaps in these solutions.*

2. Like so many other complex linux security solutions, it is lacking effectiveness due to still sharing the same kernel.

There is a good, but bit dated writeup here about the problems with Linux security, from an architecturual perspective: https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html . But, the short version is that the Linux kernel is large and complex, and has a lot of attack surface. And it's a frequent source of vulnerabilities because attackers can hit it as long as they access to the kernel, even if they are in a container/sandbox. Like, copyfail and dirtyfrag would punch through containers, but also punch through SELinux.

For example, just earlier on lemmy someone dropped a zero day that punches through SELinux: https://programming.dev/post/51103657

Now, SELinux can be used to restrict what a root shell could do after escalating... but that's further complexity you have to learn to configure, and configure it correctly as well.

Ultimately, none of the Linux security solutions come anywhere near the isolation of simply running something in a virtual machine. Which, also happens to be a lot simpler and actually possible to get people to use.

*(putting this at the bottom because it veers off topic) I have a greater argument and problem with mentalities like this. I have noticed a pattern, where many of the more effortfull and toil intensive security solutions are recommended by people who have the time, energy, and skills to execute them. They have a bias/blindspot to the realities, which is that not everyone is in the same situation as them.

For example, updating/patching software. Linux distros like RHEL or Debian, have a policy where they only do security updates, and don't do feature updates or bugfixes. This enables them to ship automatic updates, so that security issues are automatically handled.

On the other hand software like Windows, likes to bundle in breaking changes along with security updates. So automatic updates get disabled because "They might break something". And then, people don't update them, and environments get horrifically out of date, because not enough money/time/people is put into regular IT people who are in charge of maintaining them.

But some environments, have heroes, people who go around patching everything and keeping everything up to date and secure. And when they see these environments that don't have everything patched, they usually give the advice of "You should patch everything" (while simultaneously advising against auto updates), not understanding that these environments are lacking a key ingredient: Themselves.

Sure, I could be a hero. I could "patch" everything manually. I could deploy SELinux. But that would only last until I get burnt out, or leave. Once I'm gone, SELinux, the patches, any similar security solutions are gone. I've met so many people, even in cybersecurity, that are apathetic about security, even though they might have cared once upon a time.

On kubernetes it's pretty much the same amount of work. Every possible storage option exposes a generalized, abstracted "storageclass", from which storage can be provisioned and mounted into containers.

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/storage-classes/

Thank you so much!

Sorry for no transcript :(

I use KDE as my desktop. KDE is installable on any distro, although you probably want a distro with a newer version of it like Fedora or Opensuse. On KDE, these two shortcuts do what you would expect them to do.

Win + V opens up a clipboard manager by default:

I actually like this clipboard manager better than the Windows default clipboard manager, because it lets me search, edit, or star items so they can be found quickly from the "starred only tab". The amount of items kept is also configurable, and it keeps way more items than the Windows clipboard manager.

Windows + Shift + S opens Spectacle (KDE's screenshot utility) by default. It has some basic editing features, but one feature about it I like is there is an option to upload the screenshot directly to imgur for easy sharing.

For RDP, I recommend using Remmina to connect to machines via RDP. It supports shared clipboard, but also shared filesystem and some other nice stuff. You can save connections and their options to easily connect again later.

Remmina is a mature program that is available in the repositories of most Linux distros.

Well, I run a one node cluster...

But yes, I did use ceph via rook-ceph, because Openstack (a locally hosted AWS alternative), at least the Kubernetes version, wanted a ceph "cluster" to store stuff on.

Longhorn is much easier. Although again, my "cluster" was one node. I deployed it because I wanted snapshots.

I like to use more uncommon tools (it often bites me afterward but it’s funnier this way

I know the feeling.

How about this: https://docs.xcp-ng.org/installation/install-xcp-ng/#9-networking

Try setting a static ip address on xcp-ng itself, during the install phase. (this was how devices got onto networks before dhcp). You'll have to make sure it doesn't conflict with anything else on the network.

https://sso.tax/

It's unfortunately common, even though it probably shouldn't be.

Proxmox is also making their own: https://www.proxmox.com/en/products/proxmox-datacenter-manager/overview

source code: https://github.com/proxmox/proxmox-datacenter-manager

Two more that I have found:

https://docs.pegaprox.com/

And: https://github.com/xdkaine/uma-proxmox-wrapper-public

Even used stuff is expensive nowadays.

Anyway, you can buy these used refurbished small form factor business PC's.

These things: https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/

I was recently at a tech conference and I met a guy who was selling 16 gb ram one's for 30 usd, since they had managed to track them down that cheap in bulk somewhere. What happens is that corporations or govt get rid of them due to warranty expiry, so they need to be offloaded somewhere.

You probably won't be able to find them that cheap but it's definitely more affordable than new stuff. It used to be cheaper but I mostly see 200 usd in my searches.