vido

vido is a kernel launcher. It is used much like sudo, by putting vido -- in front of a command. Commands run inside a new kernel, with passthrough access to the filesystem, whitelisted devices, and (if enabled) the network.

The main uses are:

• Privilege virtualisation. vido starts out entirely unprivileged, and creates an environment where commands run as root without affecting the rest of the system. This is a more powerful alternative to fakeroot; it allows full access to a possibly customised kernel.
• Regression testing. Run the same command against multiple kernels.
• Kernel debugging. The --gdb flag runs the virtual kernel inside a debugger. If you have an application that triggers kernel bugs, you can wrap it in vido --gdb, usually without changes.
• Kernel hacking. Experiment with small changes to the kernel and test them immediately.

Get overlay access to privileged directories with --clear-dirs and --rw-dirs. This requires Linux 3.18.

Pass disk images or block devices with --disk. They are exposed as $VIDO_DISK0… variables.

Aside from the default pass-throughs, commands run in a fairly bare environment. If more services are needed, pass a script that will launch them. For example, launching udev/eudev gives udev support.

With network passthrough (--net), commands can do unprivileged networking (a SLIRP stack, with IPv4 NAT). The ping command won't work unless patched to use ICMP sockets.

Usage

The default command is a shell:

vido

Always put two dashes before the command:

vido -- cat /proc/uptime
vido -- sh -c 'dmesg |tail'

Most flags should be self-documenting:

vido --help

Requirements

You need Python 3.3

There are two main implementations, UML and KVM. In both cases you need a suitable kernel for the guest.

UML

On Ubuntu and Debian,

sudo apt-get install user-mode-linux

installs a UML kernel which you can run with:

vido --uml

You can also download UML kernels from http://uml.devloop.org.uk/kernels.html, or build your own:

vido --uml --kernel path/to/linux

Qemu / KVM

You may be able to use your current kernel:

sudo chmod a+r /boot/vmlinuz-*
vido --kvm --qemu-9p-workaround --watchdog

This is designed to work with distribution kernels that don't have 9p modules built-in. --qemu-9p-workaround is required if Qemu is older than 1.6.

If the distribution kernel isn't suitable, build a minimal kernel with:

CONFIG_NET_9P=y
CONFIG_NET_9P_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_9P_FS=y
CONFIG_DEVTMPFS=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_CONSOLE=y

Note that 9p can't be built as a loadable module, it has to be built in. Your kernel should also have:

CONFIG_DEVTMPFS_MOUNT=y
CONFIG_9P_FSCACHE=y
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=y
# networking
CONFIG_E1000=y
CONFIG_PACKET=y
# watchdog
CONFIG_IB700_WDT=y

Usage:

vido --kvm --kernel path/to/arch/x86/boot/bzImage

User namespaces

As an alternative to UML and KVM, vido can also use user namespaces. This is a recent kernel feature, less powerful than kernel virtualisation (you become root, but without the ability to take over the kernel and without many unvirtualised kernel features) but powerful enough to allow some control over mountpoints.

If CONFIG_USER_NS is not supported by your host kernel, you may need to upgrade or rebuild it. Note that CONFIG_USER_NS clashes with XFS in pre-3.12 kernels.