AppsMonitor - monitoring for your Cloudron

[necrevistonnezr]

No, I de-installed as soon as the system was up and running again, I had my share of experiments for the day

[timconsidine]

@necrevistonnezr understand, sounds fraught

just done a 3rd test install
both cloudron box services and app seem ok

[timconsidine]

Just out of curiosity (and little technical knowledge): Shouldn't a system that isolates apps via docker not be taken down completely by a malformed configuration file of one app?

someone will correct me if I am seeing this wrongly.
it wasn't malformed configuration of an app
it was a box service that failed

Ideally and mostly running containers are isolated.
But every cloudron app depends on box services, from nginx to maybe addons like proxyAuth. If the box service trips up, the app can't function as it should.

[p44]

@robi Totally agree...

[necrevistonnezr]

@timconsidine Yes, this was more directed at the Cloudron Team...

[girish]

@necrevistonnezr said:

Just out of curiosity (and little technical knowledge): Shouldn't a system that isolates apps via docker not be taken down completely by a malformed configuration file of one app?

Yeah, absolutely. This is a good conversation to have

Cloudron was written primarily for pre-packaged apps written by us and not as a sandboxing environment to run arbitrary applications. When packages were written by us, we could "trust" the input in the manifest file, description, post install etc. When we made custom apps possible, the worst case was that a user sabotages himself with a poorly written manifest. But now with community apps, there is a new vector that malicious apps can do unknown things. For example, what if the description has some clickjacking or scam link? So, you can hit problems even without installing or running an app (so we don't hit run time isolation). This is also why we don't want to integrate community listing straight into the main dashboard, this would give too many good feelings of trust.

We are fixing issues (like this) as and when they come, but one should only run 3rd party packages they trust. Cloudron company's primary focus is still to runs the apps from the main app store and not to make a general trusted environment to run random stuff (FWIW, I don't think such a product exists out there).

[timconsidine]

Sounds like “CommunityAppChecker” "AppInspector" utility is needed. Put a CloudronVersions link in input box, utility checks whatever is needed/possible, generate alerts for sus content.
Conceptually best to come from Cloudron team but that drags Cloudron towards approving apps, which is probably a v.bad direction. Maybe I will give some thought to it.

I really understand and support the official stance - it is simply not viable otherwise.

Some other simple defences :

• have registered app packager scheme : no fees, basic metadata, probably already publicly known, enough to know legit packager and no more
• ca.cloudron.io only takes submissions from registered packagers (currently must have a Cloudron account)
• Cloudron will hate (understandably) any form of stars or likes on ca.cloudron.io, but maybe a simple more neutral voluntary “I installed this” counter

[timconsidine]

Could not resist it - AppInspector available :
https://forum.cloudron.io/post/129539

Needs more and deeper tests, and nothing will ever be a guarantee.
But it's a start.

[nichu42]

@timconsidine Fresh install fails with
An error occurred during the install operation: Nginx Error: Error reloading nginx: /usr/bin/sudo exited with code 1 signal null

[timconsidine]

@nichu42 just checking : is that AppsMonitor ? or AppInspector ?
(sequence of messages leaves me unclear)

EDIT : I did a fresh install of AppsMonitor and did not meet any errors.
Is that message from the app's Logs panel ? or where did it show up ?

[nichu42]

@timconsidine It is AppsMonitor and it appears during the installation after it failed.

[timconsidine]

@nichu42 strange : not showing in my live or test instances.
I've done 5 test installs of AppsMonitor today

So probably need to start some basic 'differences' test :
I'm running cloudron 9.2
Are you the same or are you upgraded to 10 ?

Any logs showing what was happening before the crash ?

[nichu42]

@timconsidine I am on 10.0.5
I didn't spot anything useful in the log. But I am on vacation and only have my mini screen Fairphone with me do I might have missed something.

[timconsidine]

@nichu42 no problem, enjoy the holiday, let me know if you get further information afterwards