Secure Operating Systems (Microkernels seems to be the future)
Secure Operating Systems (Microkernels seems to be the future)
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/17506000
I am not satisfied with Linux's security and have been researching alternative open source OS for privacy and security So far only thing that's ready to use is GrapheneOS (Based on Android) but that's not available on desktop (Though when Android release Desktop mode it may become viable)
Qubes OS is wrapper around underlying operating systems, so it doesn’t really fix for example Linux’s security holes it just kinda sandbox/virtualize them
OpenBSD is more secure than Linux on a base level but lack mitigations and patches that are added to linux overtime and it's security practices while good for it's time is outdated now
RedoxOS (Written in Rust) got some nice ideas but sticks to same outdated practices and doesn't break the wheel too much, and security doesn't seems to be main focus of OS
Haiku and Serenity are outright worse than Linux, especially Haiku as it's single user only
Serenity adopted Pledge and Unveil from OpenBSD but otherwise lacks basic security features
All new security paradigms seems to be happening in microkernels and these are the ones that caught my eyes
None of these are ready to be used as daily driver OS but in future (hopefully) it may change
Genode seems to be far ahead of game than everything else
Ironclad Written in ADA
Atmosphere And Mesosphere Open Source Re-implementation of Nintendo Switch's Horizon OS, I didn't expected this to be security-oriented but seems like Nintendo has done a very solid job
Then there are Managarm, HelenOS, Theseus but I couldn't figure out how secure they are
Finally there is Kicksecure from creators of Whonix, Kicksecure is a linux distro that plans to fix Linux's security problems
if you know of any other OS please share it here
Microkernels have been the future since at least the 1970s.
Xen, which powers Qubes is a microkernel for instance
Interesting. I'd never heard of this. Thank you.
What kind of threat model makes Linux not secure? (Genuinely curious, I daily drive Fedora and use Flatpaks for sandboxing)
Any threat model tbh, your linux computer can be remotely used for botnet and you may not even find out (unlikely as linux is not targeted as much as windows simply because too few desktop linux users) Linux desktop's only advantage currently is obscurity but that may not remain the case with rise of popularity in Steam Deck
I'm no expert, but I don't know if I agree with the premise that Linux desktop is secure via obscurity. Linux is probably the largest effort to create a secure OS, and the Linux desktop benefits greatly from that effort.
OpenBSD has an excellent security track record and is regularly updated, I'm not sure if I believe that its security is "outdated."
Linux is the number one priority target for APTs and other threat actors. Linux runs most of the corporate world, therefor its the biggest target.
I liked the concept behind Kodachi, but there's a very, very small community supporting it. It's a good thumb-drive OS like Tails, but does a much better job than Tails. I haven't tried it in quite a while, but FreeBSD may be worth a shot. When testing open source versions of Unix, I found them ahead of OpenBSD on the modern GUI stuff, but it's anyone's guess where they are at now. Might be worth spinning up a Virtual Machine. BSD Unix has been around longer than Linux, so you can be confident there's well tested and vetted code base.
Don't use Kodachi, it is insecure mess and privacy invasion shit OS.
https://bitsex.net/english/2021/kodachi-linux-is-probably-not-secure/
GNU Hurd?
Their basic premise seems solid, but is it actively developed? it seems to go through long periods of inactivity
It's no longer a prioritiy in GNU. It's better if we forget GNU Hurd for the time being.
More info on Atmosphere as I find it fascinating that an OS created for a gaming device got such tight security:
https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/hygtnx/mesosphere_opensource_nintendo_switch_kernel_now/
"It is a completely unique microkernel with a cooperative (non-preemptive) scheduler. The kernel is secure -- so far as I can tell (as a reverse engineer and hacker), it has zero security bugs. They throw out years of backwards compatibility (they're not POSIX/UNIX), and they really, really benefit from it from a security and modularity PoV. Horizon's the only meaningful RTOS with a microkernel that I'm aware of (other than Fuschia). Everything's in userland -- filesystems, gpu (and other device drivers). The OS is capability-based and conceptually all about lots of different processes/drivers ("system modules") that host microservices. The fact that Nintendo designed such a rock-solid, modular, custom operating system for their consoles fascinates me."
"IPC is the hottest hot-path in a microkernel, correspondingly Nintendo marked every function involved in IPC as attribute((always_inline)), this was kind of a huge pain to reverse engineer as a result. In addition, Nintendo implemented "SvcReplyAndReceive" as a single system call that allows a microservice server process to reply to and receive a new message in one invocation. That said, there's actually less overhead than you think. Past of why FUSE is slower than a kernel driver for FS is because FUSE has to talk to the kernel to do filesystem stuff, so when you read a file you have your process -> FUSE -> kernel -> hardware. In comparison, on Horizon the kernel is completely uninvolved in filesystem management (it doesn't even have the sdmmc hardware mapped). Thus processes will do process -> FS system module process -> hardware."
"In Horizon, everything is very distinctly not a file. There's no global filesystem paths the way that unix/linux have special /dev/whatever. Pipes don't exist in Horizon -- all IPC is done via the horizon ipc ("HIPC") protocol. UNIX/POSIX have stuff like fork() and child processes...but creating a process is an incredibly privileged operation in a capability-based operating system. Fork() is impossible to implement in Horizon, all threads are created via SvcCreateThread() instead. Child processes aren't a thing that exist."