Software Sandboxing: The Basics

Software sandboxing is a technique to restrict a process's privileges programmatically without requiring administrative authority, allowing developers to run untrusted code with limited access to system resources. The article explains that traditional system administration tools like filesystem permissions are insufficient for modern applications, and developers need better methods to isolate third-party code—such as browser plugins—from accessing sensitive files and resources. The author draws on experiences implementing sandboxing in Emilua to provide guidance on this largely undocumented area of software development.