gVisor
Developer(s)Google
Initial release2 May 2018; 5 years ago (2018-05-02)
Repositorygithub.com/google/gvisor
Written inGo
Operating systemLinux
LicenseApache License 2.0
Websitegvisor.dev

gVisor is a container sandbox developed by Google that focuses on security, efficiency and ease of use.[1][2] gVisor implements around 200 of the Linux system calls in userspace, for additional security compared to Docker containers that run directly on top of the Linux kernel and are isolated with namespaces.[3][4] Unlike the Linux kernel, gVisor is written in the memory-safe programming language Go to prevent common pitfalls which frequently occur in software written in C.[5]

According to Google[6] and Brad Fitzpatrick,[7] gVisor is used in Google's production environment including the App Engine standard environment, Cloud Functions, Cloud ML Engine and Google Cloud Run.[8] Most recently, gVisor was integrated with Google Kubernetes Engine, allowing users to sandbox their Kubernetes pods for use cases like SaaS and multitenancy.[9]

References

  1. ^ Google Cloud Platform: Open-sourcing gVisor, a sandboxed container runtime
  2. ^ "gvisor.dev". gvisor.dev. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
  3. ^ "Updates in container isolation". LWN.net. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  4. ^ "Sandboxing with gVisor". 17 June 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2019 – via Medium.
  5. ^ Cutler, Cody; Kaashoek, M. Frans; Morris, Robert T. (2018). The benefits and costs of writing a POSIX kernel in a high-level language. pp. 89–105. ISBN 978-1-939133-08-3.
  6. ^ "GKE Sandbox: Bring defense in depth to your pods". Google Cloud Blog. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
  7. ^ "Brad Fitzpatrick Twitter". Retrieved 18 February 2019 – via Twitter.
  8. ^ "Container runtime contract | Cloud Run". Google Cloud. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  9. ^ "GKE Sandbox". Google Cloud. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
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