README
¶
Gate
Run untrusted code from anonymous sources. Instead of sending messages composed of passive data, send programs which can react to their environment. Migrate or duplicate running applications across hosts and computer architectures. See Introduction to Gate.
- License: 3-clause BSD
- Author: Timo Savola timo.savola@iki.fi
Foundations
WebAssembly is the interchange format of the user programs. However, the APIs are different from the browsers' usual WebAssembly environments. See low-level C API or the higher-level Rust crate for details.
The sandboxing and containerization features of the Linux kernel provide layers of security in addition to WebAssembly. See Security for details.
Gate services are akin to syscalls, but they work differently. New services can be added easily, and available services are discovered at run time. See Service implementation for details.
Building blocks
Gate appears as Go packages and programs. The execution mechanism is implemented in C and assembly. It is highly Linux-dependent. x86-64 and ARM64 are supported.
Important Go packages:
-
wag: The WebAssembly compiler (implemented in a separate repository).
-
gate/runtime: Core functionality. Interface to the execution mechanism.
-
gate/image: Low-level executable building and instance management.
-
gate/build: High-level executable building and snapshot restoration.
-
gate/server/web: HTTP server component which executes your code on purpose. It has a RESTful API, but some actions can be invoked also via websocket.
-
gate/service: Service implementation support and built-in services.
See the complete list of Go packages.
Programs:
-
gate: Command-line client for local daemon and remote servers. Uses SSH keys (Ed25519) for authentication.
-
gate-daemon: D-Bus daemon for running and managing instances and wasm modules locally.
-
gate-server: Standalone web server which can serve the public or require authentication.
-
gate-runtime: For optionally preconfiguring the execution environment for daemon/server, e.g. as a system service.
The available services are determined by what is built into the gate-daemon and gate-server programs. The versions provided by this Go module include only the services implemented in this repository. See extension about bundling additional services.
Objectives
While code is data, most of the time data cannot be treated as code for safety reasons. Change that at the Internet level. Data encapsulated in code can describe and transform itself.
Application portability. Migrate processes between mobile devices and servers when circumstances change: user presence, resource availability or demand, continuity etc.
Overhead needs to be low enough so that the system can be practical. Low startup latency for request processing. Low memory overhead for high density of continually running programs.
Work in progress
- Linux x86-64 host support
- Android host support
- Support for WebAssembly version 1
- Planned security measures have been implemented
- HTTP server for running programs
- Client can communicate with the program it runs on the server
- Speculative execution security issue mitigations
- Pluggable authentication
- Load programs from IPFS
- Reconnect to program instance
- Snapshot
- Restore
- Mechanism for implementing external services in language agnostic way (gRPC)
- Programs can discover and communicate with their peers on a server
- Full ARM64 host support
- milestone/1
- Clone programs locally or remotely (with or without snapshotting)
- milestone/2
- Useful resource control policies need more thought (cgroup configuration etc.)
- Stable APIs
- Additional security measures (such as a SELinux profile)
- Non-Linux host support
User program support:
- Low-level C API
- Rust support
- Go support
- Approach for splitting WebAssembly app between browser (UI) and server (state)
Requirements and build instructions
Run-time dependencies:
-
Programs other than gate require Linux 5.3. gate's remote access features should work on any operating system, but are routinely tested only on Linux.
-
D-Bus is used for communication between gate and gate-daemon, requiring D-Bus user service (dbus-user-session). gate doesn't require D-Bus when accessing a remote server.
-
Programs other than gate may need external tools depending on their configuration and capabilities.
There are two approaches to building Gate: using Go directly, or via Make.
Build using Go
Build requirements:
- The gate client program requires Go 1.13
- Other programs require Go 1.16
The Gate programs and programs importing Gate modules can be built normally
using go install
, go get
etc. See the
cmd repository for a list of
programs.
Gate runtime needs to execute some separately built binaries. To make the
built Go programs self-contained, pre-built binaries are bundled into them by
default. The pre-built binary files are under version control, and can be
rebuilt using go generate
. To disable bundling of pre-built binaries,
specify -tags=gateexecdir
for the Go build command, and use Make to build and
install them separately.
Build using Make
Build requirements:
- Linux
- C compiler
- Go compiler
- protobuf-compiler
- libprotobuf-dev
The components implemented with C and assembly can be built using make
.
make bin
builds the Go programs without bundling the non-Go components in
them.
Additional requirements for make check
:
- Python 3
- uidmap (shadow-utils)
See Makefile for more targets, such as make install
and its variants.
See also
Documentation
¶
Overview ¶
Package gate contains general documentation for its subpackages. See https://gate.computer/gate for information about the Gate project.
Errors ¶
Error strings may contain sensitive details. Some errors returned by Gate implement this interface:
interface { PublicError() string }
The public error string is intended to be exposed to the client (if the API was called via a server endpoint). If there is no PublicError method, it's an internal error with no public explanation.
Directories
¶
Path | Synopsis |
---|---|
cmd
|
|
Package facile exposes a simplified API to core functionality.
|
Package facile exposes a simplified API to core functionality. |
packetio
Package packetio provides streaming utilities.
|
Package packetio provides streaming utilities. |
database/sql
Package sql implements a NonceChecker backed by an SQL database.
|
Package sql implements a NonceChecker backed by an SQL database. |
monitor
Package monitor implements server.Monitor.
|
Package monitor implements server.Monitor. |
web/api
Package api contains definitions useful for accessing the HTTP and websocket APIs.
|
Package api contains definitions useful for accessing the HTTP and websocket APIs. |
web/api/debug
Package debug contains functionality useful for accessing the instance debugging API via HTTP.
|
Package debug contains functionality useful for accessing the instance debugging API via HTTP. |
source
|
|
http
Package http can download objects from HTTP server.
|
Package http can download objects from HTTP server. |
ipfs
Package ipfs can download objects via IPFS API server.
|
Package ipfs can download objects via IPFS API server. |
Package trap enumerates trap identifiers.
|
Package trap enumerates trap identifiers. |
internal
|
|
sys
Package sys contains syscall wrappers.
|
Package sys contains syscall wrappers. |