sandbox???

Getting Started
1

I’ve seen several references to sandbox, but not a clear definition/description of what/why
anyone have an idiot’s guide for the hard-of-clicking?
cheers
:slight_smile:

2

Please have a look at
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AboutAppSandbox/AboutAppSandbox.html

3

aha
that makes a lot of sense :slight_smile:
now - should I or shouldn’t I??? :slight_smile:

4

You only need it,
for selling apps via the Mac App Store.

5

aha!
no plans to go that route, so :):):slight_smile:

6

[quote=101123:@Mike McPherson]aha
that makes a lot of sense :slight_smile:
now - should I or shouldn’t I??? :)[/quote]
You may want to sign your apps, though to avoid trouble launching it to users. But sandboxing is just mandatory for the MAS.

7

er ok
how do I do that?
cheers

8

I’d strongly recommend to use AppWrapper and start with reading its documentation plus posts on this forum related to it.
http://www.ohanaware.com/appwrapper/

9

[quote=101129:@Torsten Gaidies]You only need it,
for selling apps via the Mac App Store.[/quote]
Although you only need it for the Mac App Store, the protection sandboxing offers applies equally to non-MAS apps. Just because a safety feature is mandatory by some, doesn’t mean it is useless otherwise.

I’ve said this elsewhere on the forum. Sandboxing helps to protect your users from things that you don’t know or may be out of your control. Plugins you are using, declares, or even the Xojo framework itself could have critical bugs that could allow an attacker to do evil stuff to the user’s computer. In that case, Sandboxing prevents that bug from affecting anything more than your app’s files.

Since the need for Sandboxing is based mostly around hypothetical and far-out situations, it’s easy for developers to dismiss. I recommend it for all Mac apps where possible.

10

Oh there is the schoolmaster I have missed in the forum :slight_smile:
Just because it is a safety feature, doesn’t mean it is useful for everyone, otherwise.

11

[quote=101216:@Torsten Gaidies]Oh there is the schoolmaster I have missed in the forum :slight_smile:
Just because it is a safety feature, doesn’t mean it is useful for everyone, otherwise.[/quote]

Thom is a former Xojo engineer and a widely respected participant of this forum :slight_smile:

12

It is good to know, thanks for the info. :slight_smile:

13

I wish Apple would revise some edge cases with Sandboxing, though.

For the only two Apps I make myself as a hobby (opposed to job-related) I can’t sandbox (and I’ve tried!). One requires root access both to install itself, to install a launchd script, to control config files and to start and stop. So frustrating. For the other I need the app to be able to write files next to any file in a hierarchy of files dropped onto it, but sandboxing doesn’t give me write privileges on the containing folders for the items (which I read but don’t write to).

I hate that I can’t use Sandboxing because I actually think it’s an excellent option and should be used as much as possible (that is, if your app can take it). It’s protection for the dev against weird uses and configurations and it’s protection for the users for a whole lot more reasons.