A new project: vx32 (http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~baford/vm/ )
offers us the possibility of running processes of the
x86 architecture in user space. This means that these applications can be run
more safely, since the memory regions they can access
would be restricted.
Vx32 already works on several operating systems and a number of
applications have been ported, such as: filesystems, an extensible public
key infrastructure, an experimental operating system in user
space or a closed zone (jail) of system calls
of Linux.
This makes it possible to run the applications of a “guest” operating system
alongside those of the server, and these operating systems in user
space run 30% faster than with virtual machines like
QEMU or VMware
One of the most interesting practical applications is 9vx
( http://swtch.com/9vx/ )
Note: The latest version for now is at: https://bitbucket.org/rminnich/vx32/src
In the future it will end up being integrated into Russ Cox’s version.
9vx, implemented by Russ Cox, is a port of the Plan 9 operating
system to FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, OS X, using the sandboxing
capabilities of the vx32 libraries.
9vx runs as a normal user process, but it behaves
like a virtual machine running plan 9. The server’s resources,
such as the filesystem, the network stack, graphical windows or audio
devices, are available as filesystems, following
the Plan9 philosophy.
To run 9vx, you only have to download it from the page mentioned
above, and run: 9vx.Linux -u glenda (or 9vx.FreeBSD
or 9vx.OSX)
You no longer have an excuse for not knowing Plan 9.
In the next posts about Plan 9 we will keep expanding the information
about its applications and configurations, both natively,
virtualised with lguest in the linux kernel, or as a user process
with vx32.