10 days left to help fund your own secure private cloud

Take a look at this guys:

https://sandstorm.io/

It's an open source project that uses the latest linux kernel features in terms of sandboxing.

What it means is that you can run your own private cloud server with the crossplatform apps you regularly use, and you don't even need to run a full virtualized server or dedicated server for it, because it can just run in a safe sandbox.

This goes a bit further than BSD Jails or LXC 1.0. This can actually give the apps controlled root access for maximum functionality and flexibility, but without security risk for your machine. At least, that's what's being developed and what's seemingly working out quite well.

This technology needs a boost so that more progress can be made in a very short time, both in terms of linux kernel features (because the server will run on a linux machine of course) that make this degree of security possible, and in terms of functionality, by porting more apps to the sandstorm platform.

For that, this project needs some funding. With 10 days left, the crowdfunding campaign is about 80% reached, so I thought that the time was right to raise some awareness about this awesome project.

In the end, it's a very simple and user friendly solution for private cloud with the apps everyone knows already on the devices they already own, and since it doesn't rely on virtualization, it runs on pretty basic hardware that everyone most certainly already has, and it's completely free to use and even modify because it's open source.

Check out the website, and support the project if you share the interest in a secure and extremely user-friendly private cloud solution.

Has anyone already been trying it out?

I like the sound of this so I thought I would give it a bump!

very interesting.

looks pretty cool.

This is certainly interesting, I shall keep an eye on this and see where it goes.

waiting for zoltan's installation walk through.

What do you mean?

It comes with an install script.

https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm#installing-the-easy-way

However, I would only advise experienced linux users to use it right now, because it's in an early alpha stage, and you have to be familiar with nginx for example. Ubuntu and derivatives (Mint, Zorin, Elementary and other crap) users should stay away from it entirely, because this will break their system. The reason is that the Canonical packages are never what they say they are, this goes for essential packages like Clang, which would prevent sandstorm from being compiled correctly and safely, but also for some app packages, that will not work they way they should work, because Canonical changes and repackages and puts stuff up that isn't true to the original project.

The better way to install it is by cloning the git, because then you'll get a newer version with more features and more security and ease-of-use. In fact, I would recommend that only people that know what "cloning the git" means would engage in installing sandstorm right now. It also only works on newer kernels. On 3.16 it has pretty good performance already.

Of course, the implementation for the moment is very basic, and there are no proven security features yet by open source standards. That means that they're there to some degree, but only for people that know what they're doing.

That why the project needs support, because it's still in early development.

 

Others that want to try out advanced sandboxing in linux, should definitely start by using Chromium, Google's open source webbrowser, on a bleeding edge distro. Chromium's sandboxing system uses a small part of the technology that is being used by projects like Sandstorm and Docker, and any help with debugging is welcome. By using Chromium on a bleeding edge distro, it's possible to help development of this kind of extremely useful technologies without having to know a whole lot about linux or without exposing one's self to security risks.

One of the things that are not very well known, is that because of this technology, on bleeding edge distros, chrome apps run in chromium sandboxes as programs, so they have a much smaller system footprint than in archaic operating systems like MS-Windows, and run much faster.

Many people would definitely open their eyes if they would start using Chromium on something like Manjaro with kernels 3.14-3.15-3.16. They would see that Chrome Apps in Chromium in bleeding edge linux distros make a whole lot of more sense than in Windows. It's possible to run Google Keep like OneNote for instance, as an autonomous application, but with extra features, and without TSR's that feed upon the system. It's entirely sandboxed, and you're pretty much safe from everyone (except Google of course).

However, when you use Chromium on a bleeding edge distro with "neutral" Chrome Apps, you can benefit of all the nice functions of the Google cloud, whilst at the same time using something like Docker or even better Sandstorm when it evolves a bit further, to use your privacy and security crucial apps simultaneously, but without having to share anything you don't want with Google.

 

And that's the nice thing about the entire sandboxing that becomes possible on bleeding edge linux machines, it makes it possible to actually use the "apps that everyone uses" in all comfort and with a lot more performance and a whole lot less overhead/cost than on a software console like MS-Windows or ChromeOS.

With things like Docker (kind of easy-to-use LXC 1.0 front-end, quite popular, but not as advanced as Sandstorm) and Sandstorm, it becomes possible to use all kinds of apps independently and securily, without having to do any advanced configuration, and without being dependent on a single cloud service provider like Google or Microsoft or Amazon or whatever.

People can actually use the very same apps they would use on a commercial platform, but not have to jeopardize their personal data, and at the same time, not be dependent on commercial companies for essential cloud services and essential productivity and communication apps, without having to learn anything.

That's why this kind of development is so important. Virtualization and advanced high security sandboxing with kernel sharing features, are the most important features right now in the computing realm. Projects like Sandstorm and Docker make it possible to use sandboxing technologies on less powerful devices and systems that aren't capable of full blown virtualization, and make it possible to get ever more performance out of ever less resources.

 

I also have to say that Darude is responsible for me finding the project name "Sandstorm" very cool. Younger people might not know 20th century Euro dance music enough to know why, in which case they should ddg.gg !yt "darude sandstorm".

wow thanks, i've been looking for something like this for long time