[Vm-dev] File & Socket Handle Access

[Eliot Miranda]

Hi All,

    recently Denis Kudriashov wanted to access the OS handle of a Socket
from the image to pass through the FFI.  David Lewis pointed out that the
AioPlugin provides a primitive to do this.  I asked David why he didn't add
it to the SocketPlugin in the first place and he discussed Andreas Rabb's
security concerns.  It strikes me
a) that accessing the OS handle of a file or a socket is extremely useful
in some circumstances and invalid in others
b) having handle access in a secondary plugin is inconvenient to say the
least
c) having access only to Socket handles and not to file handles is also
inconvenient.

So I propose adding a SecurityPlugin facility to control handle access,
which would be granted by default, and to add primitives to both the
SocketPlugin and FilePlugin to answer the native OS handle when the
SecurityPlugin grants permission.

I also propose adding a compilation flag to the Windows VM to allow
compiling out Andreas' handle management, which consists merely of
maintaining a table of the file handles (not the socket handles) that have
been created by the VM.  It strikes me that a much better solution is
merely to encrypt the handle via xoring with a value created at random.  I
don't see how Andreas' solution adds value, especially since it is not
implemented on other platforms, and merely adds overhead.

Thoughts?  Objections?
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot
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