Re: ConTeXt Live not working

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Peter Münster wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 10 2008, Yue Wang wrote:
>>> As to the live, I think a patched Lua file (loslib.c) can solve this problem:
>>> remove the line
>>>  {"execute",   os_execute},
>>> in the static const luaL_Reg syslib[].
>>>
>> Moreover, if we do that, ConTeXt will not adapt to the "stripped down" LuaTeX.
>> For example, mtxrun.lua contains many functions which depend on
>> os.execute, and it even created some synonames as well:
>>    if not os.exec  then os.exec  = os.execute end
>>    if not os.spawn then os.spawn = os.execute end
>> So, a simple line removal is not sufficient.
> 
> LuaTeX (and TeX/ConTeXt in general) is not compatible with security. The
> cache for example must be writable for everyone. In my opinion, the only
> options for live.contextgarden.net are:
> - just don't care, if there is a problem, restore from backup
> - chroot jail
> - virtual machine with virtual disk in non-persistent mode (at boot time
>   the disk is always a fresh installation)
> - perhaps some other ideas...
> 
> But adding security to LuaTeX seems to me too much work (a lot of
> exceptions, heavy security audit, problems with cache, problems with
> compatibility, and so on...).

there are provisions in mkiv to turn off os.execute etc in a tex run; 
since we have mplib embedded, there is not much reason for os.execute 
anyway so i can consider a --secure switch for mtx-context

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