Hakoniwa

Process isolation for Linux using namespaces, resource limits, landlock and seccomp. It works by creating a new, completely empty, mount namespace where the root is on a tmpdir, and will be automatically cleaned up when the last process exits.

It uses the following techniques:

• Linux namespaces: Create an isolated environment for the process.
• MNT namespace + pivot_root: Create a new root file system for the process.
• NETWORK namespace + pasta: Create a new user-mode networking stack for the process.
• setrlimit: Limit the amount of resources that can be used by the process.
• landlock: Restrict ambient rights (e.g. global filesystem access) for the process.
• seccomp: Restrict the system calls that the process can make.

It can help you with:

• Compile source code in a restricted sandbox, e.g. makepkg with Hakoniwa
• Run browsers, or proprietary softwares in an isolated environment, e.g. Firefox with Hakoniwa

It also provides a set of profiles for the desktop application, read Hakoniwa.d to learn more.

[!WARNING] Running untrusted code is never safe, sandboxing cannot change this.

Installation

Pre-compiled binary

1. Install dependencies:

   • libseccomp
   • passt

2. Download a pre-compiled binary from Releases.

3. Configure AppArmor or SELinux, if enabled.

From source

1. Install dependencies:

   • libseccomp
   • passt

2. Compile binary from source code and install to /usr/bin/hakoniwa:

   sudo cargo install hakoniwa-cli --root /usr --git https://github.com/souk4711/hakoniwa.git --locked
   

3. Configure AppArmor or SELinux, if enabled.

Distros

Arch

# Install dependencies
sudo pacman -S --noconfirm libseccomp passt cargo

# Compile binary from source code and install to /usr/bin/hakoniwa
sudo cargo install hakoniwa-cli --root /usr --locked

Fedora 41

# Install dependencies
sudo dnf install -y libseccomp-devel passt cargo

# Compile binary from source code and install to /usr/bin/hakoniwa
sudo cargo install hakoniwa-cli --root /usr --locked

# Configure SELinux
sudo dnf install -y container-selinux
sudo chcon -u system_u -t container_runtime_exec_t /usr/bin/hakoniwa

Ubuntu 24.04

# Install dependencies
sudo apt install -y libseccomp-dev passt cargo

# Compile binary from source code and install to /usr/bin/hakoniwa
sudo cargo install hakoniwa-cli --root /usr --locked

# Configure AppArmor
sudo curl -o /etc/apparmor.d/hakoniwa https://raw.githubusercontent.com/souk4711/hakoniwa/refs/heads/main/etc/apparmor.d/hakoniwa
sudo systemctl reload apparmor.service

Usage

CLI

$ hakoniwa run -- sh
sh-5.2$ pwd
/
sh-5.2$ ls
bin  etc  lib  lib64  proc  sbin  usr
sh-5.2$ ls /proc
1           bus        crypto         execdomains  ioports    kmsg         meminfo  net           self      sysrq-trigger  version
3           cgroups    devices        fb           irq        kpagecgroup  misc     pagetypeinfo  slabinfo  sysvipc        vmallocinfo
acpi        cmdline    diskstats      filesystems  kallsyms   kpagecount   modules  partitions    softirqs  thread-self    vmstat
asound      config.gz  dma            fs           kcore      kpageflags   mounts   pressure      stat      timer_list     zoneinfo
bootconfig  consoles   driver         interrupts   key-users  loadavg      mtd      schedstat     swaps     tty
buddyinfo   cpuinfo    dynamic_debug  iomem        keys       locks        mtrr     scsi          sys       uptime
sh-5.2$ ps aux
USER         PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
johndoe        1  0.0  0.0   4708  4020 ?        S    21:22   0:00 /usr/bin/sh
johndoe        4  0.0  0.0   6620  3896 ?        R+   21:22   0:00 ps aux
sh-5.2$ exit
exit

$ hakoniwa run -v --config /etc/hakoniwa.d/firefox.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: /etc/hakoniwa.d/firefox.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/os/linux.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/device/dri.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/device/sound.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/dbus-session.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/dbus-system.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/pipewire.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/pulseaudio.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/wayland.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/socket/x11.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/network/mode/pasta.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/network/connect/http.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] CONFIG: Including /etc/hakoniwa.d/abstractions/network/connect/https.toml
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] Unshare namespaces: CloneFlags(CLONE_NEWNS | CLONE_NEWCGROUP | CLONE_NEWUTS | CLONE_NEWIPC | CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWPID | CLONE_NEWNET)
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] RootDir: "/tmp/hakoniwa-mylPUJ" -> "/"
...
[2025-04-27T07:01:41Z DEBUG] Execve: "/usr/bin/firefox", []
...

More examples can be found in hakoniwa-cli.

Rust Library

The code below is almost eq to hakoniwa run -- sh:

use hakoniwa::Container;

fn main() {
    _ = Container::new()        // Create Container with new namespaces via unshare
        .rootfs("/")            // Mount necessary directories, e.g. `/bin`
        // .devfsmount("/dev")     // Mount `devfs` on `/dev`, it contains a minimal set of device files, like `/dev/null`
        // .tmpfsmount("/tmp")     // Mount `tmpfs` on `/tmp`
        // .setrlimit(..)          // Set resource limits
        // .landlock_ruleset(..)   // Set landlock ruleset
        // .seccomp_filter(..)     // Set seccomp filter
        .command("/bin/sh")     // Create Command
        .status()               // Execute
        .expect("failed to execute process witnin container");
}

More examples can be found in hakoniwa.

Implementation of Command::status

Acknowledgements

• Special thanks to bubblewrap.

License

The CLI is licensed under the GPL-3.0-only.

The Library is licensed under the LGPL-3.0 WITH LGPL-3.0-linking-exception.