isolate/NEWS at master · ioi/isolate · GitHub

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Version 2.5  [2026-05-01]

  This version fixes several security vulnerabilities discovered
  by Luca Versari and Google Gemini. None of the vulnerabilities
  compromises security of the sandbox, but they could be exploited
  by the user running Isolate to bypass system privilege boundaries.

  *  When opening the meta-file we switched the UID back to the
     calling user, but not the GID. This could allow the caller to
     overwrite files that are writeable by the "root" group, or
     create/rename files in directories writeable by it.

     When evaluating severity of this problem, we looked for such
     files in typical Linux installations. Only a few cases were
     found: TeXlive caches, /dev/uinput (which could be possibly
     used to inject keystrokes), several configuration knobs in /sys
     (where the content written is unlikely to be syntactically
     correct) and triggers of removal of PCI devices (which can
     cause a denial-of-service attack).

  *  Although we dropped privileges properly when bind-mounting a directory,
     we did not in the preliminary check of existence used with the "maybe"
     option. This provided an oracle for testing existence of directories
     behind path components unreachable to the calling user.

  *  Directory rules allowed mounting of arbitrary deviceless
     filesystems. We are not sure if all of them are safe to expose,
     so we limit the filesystems to a set of safe ones now. If you need
     to expand the list, please let us know.

  Besides the security fixes, we improved robustness, error
  reporting, and documentation at several places.

Version 2.4.1  [2026-04-27]

  *  Fixed a bug in parsing of /etc/sub[ug]id — by mistake,
     Isolate used /etc/subuid for both user and group IDs.

Version 2.4  [2026-04-26]

  *  A seccomp-based system call filter has been added to thwart
     several potential information leaks across sandbox boundaries.
     See "System calls restrictions" in the man page for details.

  *  "isolate --check-config -vv" prints parsed configuration.

Version 2.3  [2026-04-04]

  *  The UID and GID range for the sandboxes is obtained from /etc/sub[ug]ids
     entries of a configured user. The old method of configuring the
     ranges explicitly is still supported, but no longer the default.

  *  "isolate --check-config" can be used to verify correctness of the
     configuration file.

Version 2.2.1  [2025-09-29]

  *  Fixed the check for asymmetric cores in isolate-check-environment.

Version 2.2  [2025-09-01]

  *  Switched to a new kernel API for setting filesystem quotas,
     which works with more filesystems (e.g., tmpfs).

  *  Wall-clock time is reported correctly even if the system
     clock is re-set during program execution.

Version 2.1.2  [2025-08-14]

  *  Build date and commit are recorded in built binaries only
     when building from a Git checkout.

Version 2.1.1  [2025-08-14]

  *  isolate-check-environment checks for asymmetric cores.

  *  By mistake, isolate was compiled without optimization.
     Added -O2 to CFLAGS.

  *  Added packaging for Debian Trixie on both amd64 and arm64.

Version 2.1  [2025-06-08]

  •  There are official packages for Debian Bookworm (amd64, arm64)
     and last two LTS releases of Ubuntu (amd64 only). Packaged Isolate
     takes care of starting systemd services properly. It is available
     only to users that are members of "isolate" group.

  •  Unit files for systemd are installed by default.

  •  Cgroup-based timing works when --run is used multiple times
     on the same sandbox.

  •  Added manual pages for isolate-cg-keeper and isolate-check-environment.
     The man page for isolate explains more about cgroups and containers.

  •  isolate-check-environment checks presence of simultaneous
     multi-threading.

  •  All binaries are compiled with security hardening flags.

  •  Minor bug fixes.

Version 2.0  [2024-02-28]

  •  This version runs only on systems supporting CGroup v2, which are
     basically all new Linux systems. If you need to stick with CGroup v1,
     please use Isolate 1.10.1.

  •  If you are running systemd, Isolate now comes with isolate.service
     that delegates a subtree of the cgroup hierarchy to Isolate.
     On systems without systemd, you have to set up the delegation
     yourself and set its root in Isolate's configuration file.

  •  The --cg-timing switch has been removed. In control group mode,
     this mode of timing is always used.

  •  Added a simple protocol for locking sandboxes. When a sandbox is
     initialized using "isolate --init", it is reserved for the calling
     user until "isolate --cleanup" is used. It is also not allowed
     to call "isolate --run" multiple times in parallel on the same box.

  •  "isolate --init" resets the sandbox if it already existed.

  •  Root can operate sandboxes on behalf of other users using
     --as-uid and --as-gid options.

  •  Configuration can specify than only root is allowed to create new
     sandboxes. Together with the previous feature, it allows for creation
     of system-wide daemons allocating sandboxes to users. One such daemon
     will probably appear in a future release of Isolate.