Firejail
Firejail is a lightweight security tool intended to protect a Linux system by setting up a restricted environment for running (potentially untrusted) applications.
More specifically, it is an SUID sandbox program that reduces the risk of security breaches by using Linux namespaces, seccomp-bpf and Linux capabilities. It allows a process and all its descendants to have their own private view of the globally shared kernel resources, such as the network stack, process table and mount table. Firejail can work in an SELinux or AppArmor environment, and it is integrated with Linux Control Groups.
Written in C with virtually no dependencies, the software runs on any Linux computer with a 3.x kernel version or newer. It can sandbox any type of processes: servers, graphical applications, and even user login sessions. The software includes sandbox profiles for a number of more common Linux programs, such as Mozilla Firefox, Chromium, VLC, Transmission etc.
The sandbox is lightweight, the overhead is low. There are no complicated configuration files to edit, no socket connections open, no daemons running in the background. All security features are implemented directly in Linux kernel and available on any Linux computer.
Videos
Links
- Project webpage: https://firejail.wordpress.com/
- IRC: https://web.libera.chat/#firejail
- Download and Installation: https://firejail.wordpress.com/download-2/
- Features: https://firejail.wordpress.com/features-3/
- Documentation: https://firejail.wordpress.com/documentation-2/
- FAQ: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions
- Wiki: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/wiki
- GitHub Actions: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/actions
- GitLab CI: https://gitlab.com/Firejail/firejail_ci/pipelines
- Debian CI: https://salsa.debian.org/reiner/firejail
- Debian Package Tracker: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firejail
- Ubuntu PPA: https://launchpad.net/~deki/+archive/ubuntu/firejail
- Video Channel: https://odysee.com/@netblue30:9?order=new
- Backup Video Channel: https://www.bitchute.com/profile/JSBsA1aoQVfW/
Security vulnerabilities
See SECURITY.md.
Installing
For the supported versions, see SECURITY.md.
Debian
Debian stable (bullseye): We recommend to use the backports package.
Ubuntu
Note: The PPA recommendation is mainly for firejail itself; it should be fine to install firetools and firejail-related tools directly from the distribution if they are not in the PPA as they tend to be updated less frequently.
For Ubuntu 18.04+ and derivatives (such as Linux Mint), users are strongly advised to use the PPA.
How to add and install from the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deki/firejail sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install firejail firejail-profiles
Reason: The firejail package for Ubuntu 20.04 has been left vulnerable to CVE-2021-26910 for months after a patch for it was posted on Launchpad:
See also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/FAQ:
What software is supported by the Ubuntu Security team?
Ubuntu is currently divided into four components: main, restricted, universe and multiverse. All binary packages in main and restricted are supported by the Ubuntu Security team for the life of an Ubuntu release, while binary packages in universe and multiverse are supported by the Ubuntu community.
Additionally, the PPA version is likely to be more recent and to contain more profile fixes.
See the following discussions for details:
- Should I keep using the version of firejail available in my distro repos?
- How to install the latest version on Ubuntu and derivatives
Other
Firejail is available in multiple Linux distributions:
Other than the aforementioned exceptions, as long as your distribution provides a supported version of firejail, it's generally a good idea to install it from the distribution.
The version can be checked with firejail --version after installing.
You can also install one of the released packages.
Building
Instructions for building and installing the current development version from source.
It is recommended to use the distribution-specific instructions below when applicable, as they generate native packages, which should make integration with the rest of the system and package management easier.
For other distributions, see the generic instructions.
See also .gitlab-ci.yml for how distribution-specific builds are done in CI.
Arch
Note: The AUR package is not maintained by us.
Install firejail-git from the AUR.
Example:
Debian
For Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives:
Note: Any ./configure flags should be passed to mkdeb.sh
(such as ./mkdeb.sh --enable-foo).
sudo apt-get update -qy sudo apt-get install -qy \ git build-essential fakeroot lintian libapparmor-dev pkg-config gawk git clone 'https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git' && cd firejail && ./configure && make dist && ./mkdeb.sh && sudo dpkg -i ./*.deb && make installcheck
Fedora
For Fedora and derivatives:
Note: Any ./configure flags should be passed to mkrpm.sh
(such as ./platform/rpm/mkrpm.sh --enable-foo).
sudo dnf update -y sudo dnf install -y rpm-build gcc make git clone 'https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git' && cd firejail && ./configure && make dist && ./platform/rpm/mkrpm.sh && sudo rpm -i ./*.rpm && make installcheck
Generic
Generic build/install instructions:
git clone 'https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git' && cd firejail && ./configure && make -j "$(nproc)" && sudo make install-strip && make installcheck
On Debian/Ubuntu you will need to install git and gcc.
To build with AppArmor support (which is usually used on Debian, Ubuntu,
openSUSE and derivatives), install the AppArmor development libraries and
pkg-config and use the --enable-apparmor ./configure option:
sudo apt-get install git build-essential libapparmor-dev pkg-config gawk
To build with SELinux support (which is usually used on Fedora, RHEL and
derivatives), install libselinux1-dev (libselinux-devel on Fedora) and use the
--enable-selinux ./configure option.
Detailed information on using firejail from git is available on the wiki.
Running the sandbox
Note: Make sure to use the full path to the program (for example, firejail /usr/bin/firefox instead of firejail firefox) to avoid potential
firejail-in-firejail issues (see
#2877).
To start the sandbox, prefix your command with firejail:
firejail /usr/bin/firefox # starting Mozilla Firefox firejail /usr/bin/transmission-gtk # starting Transmission BitTorrent firejail /usr/bin/vlc # starting VideoLAN Client sudo firejail /etc/init.d/nginx start
Run firejail --list in a terminal to list all active sandboxes. Example:
$ firejail --list 1617:netblue:/usr/bin/firejail /usr/bin/firefox-esr 7719:netblue:/usr/bin/firejail /usr/bin/transmission-qt 7779:netblue:/usr/bin/firejail /usr/bin/galculator 7874:netblue:/usr/bin/firejail /usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file file:///home/netblue/firejail-whitelist.mp4 7916:netblue:firejail --list
Desktop integration
Integrate your sandbox into your desktop by running the following two commands:
firecfg --fix-sound sudo firecfg
The first command solves some shared memory/PID namespace bugs in PulseAudio software prior to version 9. The second command integrates Firejail into your desktop. You would need to logout and login back to apply PulseAudio changes.
Start your programs the way you are used to: desktop manager menus, file manager, desktop launchers.
The integration applies to any program supported by default by Firejail. There are over 900 default applications in the current Firejail version, and the number goes up with every new release.
We keep the application list in src/firecfg/firecfg.config (/etc/firejail/firecfg.config when installed).
Security profiles
Most Firejail command line options can be passed to the sandbox using profile files.
You can find the profiles for all supported applications in etc/ (/etc/firejail/ when installed).
We also keep a list of profile fixes for previous released versions in etc-fixes/.
If you keep additional Firejail security profiles in a public repository, please give us a link:
Use this issue to request new profiles:
You can also use this tool to get a list of syscalls needed by a program:
Uninstalling
firecfg creates symlinks in /usr/local/bin, so to fully remove firejail, run the following before uninstalling:
See man firecfg for details.
Note: Broken symlinks are ignored when searching for an executable in $PATH,
so uninstalling without doing the above should not cause issues.
Latest released version: 0.9.78
This is an emergency release due to GTK library changes:
Applications that use glycin 2.0.0 or later via gdk-pixbuf2
(examples: Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP) crash.
The library glycin provides a set of "safe" image format loaders
to gdk-pixbuf2, another library which is widely used in GTK-based
applications for loading images.
As of gdk-pixbuf2 2.44.1, the calls to glycin loaders are wrapped in
bubblewrap.
For details, see #6906.
Current development version: 0.9.79
--profile=filename|appanme rework
Issue #6896: requiring a full path or a relative path for the filename.
--profile=filename|appname
Load a custom security profile from filename, or use the name of
a specific application.
If the command line option --profile is not provided, Firejail
will attempt to extract the appname from the target program file‐
name. It will then search ~/.config/firejail directory for a
suitable profile, followed by a search in /etc/firejail/direc‐
tory.
Example:
$ firejail firefox
Reading profile /home/netblue/.config/firejail/firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox-common.profile
[...]
When using a filename, please include a full path or a relative
path.
$ firejail --profile=./firefox.profile firefox
Reading profile ./firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox-common.profile
[...]
--profile=appname comes in handy when running appimages:
$ firejail --appimage --profile=firefox firefox-
nightly-148.0.r20260103-x86_64.AppImage
Reading profile /home/netblue/.config/firejail/firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox.profile
Reading profile /etc/firejail/firefox-common.profile
[...]
See man 5 firejail-profile for profile file syntax information.
For profile resolution details see https://github.com/net‐
blue30/firejail/wiki/Creating-Profiles.
--unhide-pid1
--unhide-pid1
Pid 1 is always present inside Firejail sandbox. By restricting
access to /proc kernel interface, general tools like ps are un‐
able to view and access this process. --unhide-pid1 option dis‐
ables this functionality. Example:
$ firejail --name=test ### by default pid 1 is not visible
[...]
Child process initialized in 59.41 ms
$ ps a
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
4 ? S 0:00 /bin/bash
5 ? R+ 0:00 ps a
$ exit
Parent is shutting down, bye…
$ firejail --name=test --unhide-pid1 ### pid 1 is visible
[...]
Child process initialized in 58.29 ms
$ ps a
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 ? S 0:00 firejail --name=test --unhide-pid1
4 ? S 0:00 /bin/bash
6 ? R+ 0:00 ps a
$ exit
Parent is shutting down, bye…
--keep-hostname
--keep-hostname
By default, the hostname is replaced by a random name generated
by firejail at startup. Use this option to disable this feature.
Example:
$ firejail --keep-hostname
Landlock support - ongoing/experimental
- Added on #6078, which is based on #5315 from ChrysoliteAzalea/landlock
- Compile-time detection based on linux/landlock.h - if the header is found, the feature is compiled in
- Runtime detection based on whether Landlock is supported by the kernel and is enabled on the system
LANDLOCK
Landlock is a Linux security module first introduced in version 5.13 of
the Linux kernel. It allows unprivileged processes to restrict their
access to the filesystem. Once imposed, these restrictions can never
be removed, and all child processes created by a Landlock-restricted
processes inherit these restrictions. Firejail supports Landlock as an
additional sandboxing feature. It can be used to ensure that a sand‐
boxed application can only access files and directories that it was ex‐
plicitly allowed to access. Firejail supports populating the ruleset
with both a basic set of rules (see --landlock) and with a custom set
of rules.
Important notes:
- A process can install a Landlock ruleset only if it has either
CAP_SYS_ADMIN in its effective capability set, or the "No New
Privileges" restriction enabled. Because of this, enabling the
Landlock feature will also cause Firejail to enable the "No New
Privileges" restriction, regardless of the profile or the
--nonewprivs command line option.
- Access to the /proc directory is managed through the --land‐
lock.proc command line option.
- Access to the /etc directory is automatically allowed. To
override this, use the --writable-etc command line option. You
can also use the --private-etc option to restrict access to the
/etc directory.
To enable Landlock self-restriction on top of your current Firejail se‐
curity features, pass --landlock flag to Firejail command line. You
can also use --landlock.read, --landlock.write, --landlock.special and
--landlock.execute options together with --landlock or instead of it.
Example:
$ firejail --landlock --landlock.read=/media --landlock.proc=ro /usr/bin/mc
Profile Statistics
A small tool to print profile statistics. Compile and install as usual. The tool is installed in the /usr/lib/firejail directory.
Run it over the profiles in /etc/profiles:
$ /usr/lib/firejail/profstats /etc/firejail/*.profile No include .local found in /etc/firejail/noprofile.profile Warning: multiple caps in /etc/firejail/tidal-hifi.profile Warning: multiple caps in /etc/firejail/tqemu.profile Warning: multiple caps in /etc/firejail/transmission-daemon.profile Warning: multiple caps in /etc/firejail/trivalent.profile Stats: profiles 1336 include local profile 1335 (include profile-name.local) include globals 1301 (include globals.local) blacklist ~/.ssh 1195 (include disable-common.inc) seccomp 1207 capabilities 1329 noexec 1208 (include disable-exec.inc) noroot 1099 memory-deny-write-execute 321 restrict-namespaces 1045 apparmor 860 private-bin 814 private-dev 1169 private-etc 837 private-cache 861 private-lib 86 private-tmp 1030 whitelist home directory 656 whitelist var 969 (include whitelist-var-common.inc) whitelist run/user 1299 (include whitelist-runuser-common.inc or blacklist ${RUNUSER}) whitelist usr/share 755 (include whitelist-usr-share-common.inc net none 452 dbus-user none 761 dbus-user filter 202 dbus-system none 964 dbus-system filter 13