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vstinner
pysandbox
Python2012–2014
vstinner / pysandbox · Archived

pysandbox

WARNING: pysandbox is BROKEN BY DESIGN, please move to a new sandboxing solution (run python in a sandbox, not the opposite!)

Security & Privacy
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
3Distinct people
3Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
378GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

WARNING: pysandbox is BROKEN BY DESIGN, please move to a new sandboxing solution (run python in a sandbox, not the opposite!)

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by month3 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2012-03-21 07:19:06 UTC to 2014-09-07 05:40:09 UTC.

012012-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 commentsMar 20122012-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2012-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 commentsJun 20132013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsSep 2014

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Mar 20122012-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-04-01 00:00:00 UTC110
Apr 20122012-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20122012-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20122012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20122012-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20122012-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20122012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20122012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20122012-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-12-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Dec 20122012-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20132013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20132013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20132013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20132013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20132013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20132013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20132013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20132013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20132013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20132013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Dec 20132013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20142014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20142014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20142014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20142014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20142014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20142014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20142014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20142014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-10-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

3 sources
bryanh·Sep 7, 2014
Building a truly safe Python sandbox (well, in CPython at least) is widely considered a fool's errand [0]. However, a Python sandbox can be relatively safely done in two ways: 1. By completely reimplementing Python at a lower level and intercepting system calls, like PyPy's sandbox feature [1]. 2. By utilizing other, more mature OS level constructs (IE: think containerization like LXC (which is imperfect), stacking OS features like seccomp/chroot/etc. or better, true virtualization like Xen). Ideally, you'd combine them both and then run them on a "dumb box" which is just a REST API with no other keys or system access. The key to designing moderately secure sandboxes is just accepting that there are angles of attack you haven't considered yet, so design in layers. If you find yourself inspecting code to decide if it is safe, you are fight
Read the rest
ing a losing battle... I'd love to hear of any success stories here though! Great detailed write up of the pitfalls @op, thanks. [0] https://github.com/haypo/pysandbox/ or https://lwn.net/Articles/574215/ [1] http://pypy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/sandbox.html
In Bypassing a Python sandbox by abusing code objects

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