MacOS has a build in Sandbox feature which may help you but does not exactly have the same functionality as Sandboxy. This Paolo Fabio Zaino's Blog post from 2015 explains how to run Applications in a Mac OS X sandbox.
Mozilla will add a new security sandbox system to Firefox on Linux and Firefox on Mac. The new technology, named RLBox, works by separating third-party libraries from an app's native code. Applications running in the sandbox have to specifically request access to things like your files or your webcam, giving you an added level of security. The macOS sandbox optionally can be implemented by applications you download online, but is mandatory for any application you download from the Mac App Store. How to run this game on PC or MAC. You can run all Android games and applications on your PC or MAC computer. Using a free software called Bluestacks, you don't need to purchase anything but games or applications it self if it isn't free. As such I wanted to run them in a sandbox where they could just read files from their folder. I have found some questions about sandbox-exec but pretty old and Apple says it is a deprecated command (though I don't care as long as it works).
Introduction
Scripting between Mac applications has long been a part of the desktop ecosystem. It was originally introduced in October 1993 as part of System 7 as a way to create complex workflows using publishing applications like QuarkXPress. Since then, many applications have supported AppleScript through the use of scripting dictionaries (Brent’s article shows you how to do this.) In this article, I’m going to explain how to communicate with another app using the commands and objects in its scripting dictionary.
But before we do that, we need to take a look at some recent events on the Mac platform. After opening the Mac App Store in late 2010, Apple announced that all developer submissions would need to run in a sandbox by November 2011. This deadline was pushed back several times, until it eventually went into effect on June 1, 2012.
The moving deadline should be your first clue that getting Mac apps to run in a sandbox was not exactly straightforward. Unlike their counterparts on iOS that had always run in a sandbox, many long-time developers realized that a secure environment would mean a lot of changes to their apps. As I heard one Apple security engineer put it, “We’re putting the genie back into the bottle.”
One of the major challenges with this effort was with apps that used AppleScript. Many functions that used to be easy were suddenly difficult. Other things became outright impossible to accomplish. The main cause of this frustration was that apps could no longer arbitrarily control another app via scripting. From a security point of view, there are many good reasons why this is a bad idea. From a developer and customer point of view, a lot of things broke.
Initially, Apple helped ease the transition by granting ‘temporary exceptions’ in an application’s entitlements. These exceptions allowed apps to retain functionality that would have otherwise been lost. And as the name indicates, many of these special cases are disappearing, as alternative ways of controlling other apps have been made available in more recent versions of OS X.
This tutorial will show you the current best practices for controlling another app using AppleScript. I’ll also show you some tricks that will help you and your customers get AppleScripts set up with a minimum amount of effort.
First Steps
The first thing you need to learn is how to run an AppleScript from your own app. Typically, the hardest part of this is writing AppleScript code. https://campingnew591.weebly.com/blog/mac-quick-switch-apps. Behold:
In my opinion, AppleScript’s greatest strength is not its syntax. Nor is its ability to process strings, even when it’s making them AWESOME DUH
When developing scripts like this, I constantly refer to the AppleScript Language Guide. The good news is that scripts that communicate with other apps are typically short and sweet. AppleScript can be thought of as a transport mechanism rather than a processing environment. The script shown above is atypical.
Once you have your script written and tested, you can move back to the comfortable environs of Objective-C. And the first line of code you’ll write is a trip back in time to the Carbon era:
Don’t worry; you’re not going to do anything crazy like add a framework to the project. You just need Carbon.h because it has a list of all the AppleEvent definitions. Remember, this code has been around for more than 20 years!
Once you have the definitions, you can create an event descriptor. This is a chunk of data that is passed both to and from your script. At this point, you can think of it as an encapsulation of a target that will execute the event, a function to call, and a list of parameters for that function. Here is one for the “chockify” function above, using an
NSString as a parameter:
Note: This code is available on GitHub. The
Automation.scpt file contains the chockify function and all the other scripts used in this tutorial. The Objective-C code is all in AppDelegate.m .
Now that you have an event descriptor that tells AppleScript what you want to do, you need to give it somewhere to do it. That means loading an AppleScript from your application bundle:
An instance of
NSAppleScript is created using a URL from the application bundle. That script, in turn, is used with the chockify event descriptor created above. If everything goes according to plan, you end up with another event descriptor. If not, you get a dictionary back that contains information describing what went wrong. Although the pattern is similar to many other Foundation classes, the error is not an instance of NSError .
All that’s left to do now is extract the information you want from the descriptor: Apps to make music beats for mac.
Your InputString just got a facelift, and you’ve seen everything you need to run AppleScripts from your app. Sort of.
The Way It Used To Be
There was a time when you could send AppleEvents to any application, not just to the currently running application, as we did with chockify above.
Say you wanted to know what URL was loaded into the foremost window of Safari. All you needed to do was
tell application 'Safari' what to do:
These days, all doing that is likely to produce is the following in your Debug Console:
Even though Safari is running. What. The.
Sandbox Restrictions
You’re trying to run this script from an application sandbox. As far as that sandbox is concerned, Safari is, in fact, not running.
The problem is that no one gave your app permission to talk to Safari. This turns out to be a pretty big security hole: a script can easily get the contents of the current page or even run JavaScript against any tab of any window in your browser. Imagine how great that would be if one of those pages was for your bank account. Or if one of the pages contained a form field with your credit card number. Ouch.
That, in a nutshell, is why arbitrary script execution was banned from the Mac App Store.
Luckily, things have gotten much better in recent releases of OS X. In 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple introduced a new abstract class called
NSUserScriptTask . There are three concrete subclasses that let you run Unix shell commands (NSUserUnixTask ), Automator workflows (NSUserAutomatorTask ), and our beloved AppleScript (NSUserAppleScriptTask ). The remainder of this tutorial will focus on that last class, since it’s the one most commonly used.
Apple’s mantra for the application sandbox is to drive security policy through user intent. In practice, this means a user has to decide to want to run your script. It might have come from the Internet or it might be a part of your application; the only thing that matters is that your customer says “Yes, I want to run this script.” Once that permission is granted, the scripts are run in a way where the interaction with the rest of the system is limited. The
NSUserScriptTask class makes all this possible.
Installing Scripts
So how does a user grant access for an application that wants to run scripts?
The mechanism is surprisingly simple: your application can only run scripts from a specific folder in the user’s account. The only way scripts can get into that folder is if the user copies them there. Essentially, OS X gives you a read-only view of what’s in those scripts.
This presents a challenge: the folder is in User > Library > Application Scripts and is named using the application’s bundle identifier. For Scriptinator, that folder is named in a way only a programmer could love:
com.iconfactory.Scriptinator . None of this is very user-friendly, especially since the Library folder is hidden by default on OS X.
One approach to this problem is to implement some code that opens this hidden folder for your customer. For example:
That’s a great solution for scripts written by a user. The user can then open that folder using a control in your app and edit scripts in any way seen fit.
But sometimes you’ll want to help the end user install scripts that you’ve written. Chances are, you’re a better programmer than your average customer, and you know how to write code that makes your app work better with your customer’s other apps. The natural place to put your own scripts is in the application bundle, but how do you get scripts into the user’s scripts folder?
Sandbox App Free
The solution here is to get permission to write into that folder. In Xcode, you need to update your app’s Capabilities to “User Selected File to Read/Write,” under App Sandbox > File Access. Again, user intent is the guiding factor here, since you’re being given permission to add scripts to the folder:
That
Automation.scpt file that we used to run from inside the application bundle is now exposed in the regular file system.
It’s important throughout this entire process to let your customer know exactly what’s going on. You have to remember that the customer is the one in control of the script, not you. If the customer decides to clear out all his or her scripts from the folder, you need to cope with that. You may need to disable an app feature that requires the script, or explain why the script needs to be installed again.
Note: The Scriptinator sample code includes both of the approaches shown above. For a real world example, take a look at the Overlay tool in the free trial version of xScope. It has a user-friendly setup procedure and sophisticated scripting that lets the app communicate with the customer’s web browser. As a bonus, you may find that xScope is a great tool for doing your own development!
Scripting Tasks
Now that you have the automation scripts in the right place, you can start to use them.
Mac Run App In Sandbox Free
In the code below, the event descriptors that we created above have not changed. The only thing that’s different is how they’re run: you’ll be using an
NSUserAppleScriptTask instead of NSAppleScript .
Presumably, you’ll be using these script tasks frequently. The documentation warns that
NSUserAppleScriptTask “should be invoked no more than once for a given instance of the class,” so it’s a good idea to write a factory method that creates these tasks as needed:
If you’re writing a Mac app that has both a sandboxed and non-sandboxed version, you’ll need to be careful getting the
directoryURL . The NSApplicationScriptsDirectory is only available when sandboxed.
After creating the script task, you execute it with an AppleEvent and provide a completion handler:
For scripts that a user has written, the user may expect your app to simply ‘run’ the script (and not call a function specified in an event descriptor). In this case, you’ll pass
nil for the event and the script will behave as if the user double-clicked on it in the Finder.
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One of the nice things about
NSUserAppleScriptTask is the completion handler. Scripts are run asynchronously, so your user interface doesn’t need to block while a (potentially lengthy) script is run. Be careful about what you do when that completion handler is invoked; it’s not running on the main thread, so you can’t make any updates to your user interface there.
Behind the Scenes
What’s going on behind the scenes?
As you may have guessed by the fact that scripts can only run once asynchronously, the code is now executed out of process using XPC. Just as iOS 8 uses XPC to make sure extensions don’t affect the calling application in any way, a running script has no access to the address space of your calling application.
If you look at the
keySenderPIDAttr attribute in an incoming event descriptor, you’ll see that the process ID belongs to /usr/libexec/lsboxd , not your own application. This mysterious process is presumably the Launch Services sandbox daemon. In any case, your requests to another process are most certainly being marshaled.
To understand more about the security goals of the application sandbox at a high level, I’d recommend Ivan Krstić’s talk “The OS X App Sandbox” at WWDC 2012. It’s a surprisingly entertaining talk, and at 36 minutes into the presentation, the automation changes shown above are introduced. At that same conference, a talk entitled “Secure Automation Techniques in OS X” by Sal Soghoian and Chris Nebel goes into the details of the automation changes. Skip ahead to the 35-minute mark if you just want to learn about Application-Run User Scripts.
Another important security announcement discussed in these talks — but not covered in this tutorial — are access groups. If you’re going to be scripting system applications like Mail or iTunes, you’ll definitely want to pay attention to this topic in the videos above.
Synchronicity
As I mentioned above, there is a subtle difference between
NSAppleScript and NSUserAppleScriptTask : the new mechanism runs asynchronously. For the most part, using a completion handler is a much better way to deal with things, because there’s nothing to block your application while a script runs.
However, there are cases where it can get tricky if you’re executing tasks with dependencies. If one task needs to complete before another is started, you’ll quickly be missing the synchronous nature of
NSAppleScript .
Cheat engine 6.0 mac free download. A simple way to get behavior that mimics the old way of doing things is to use a semaphore that makes sure only one task is running at a time. In your class or application initialization, create the semaphore using
libdispatch :
Then simply wait on that semaphore before initiating the script task. When the task completes, signal on that same semaphore:
Again, don’t do this unless you have a really good reason.
What Can You Script?
In the last example, the Network pane of System Preferences was opened with the following AppleScript code:
Pretty cool, but how the heck do you know what the IDs of the various panes are? How would you open the Accessibility view of the Security & Privacy pane instead of the Network pane? Photo catalog app mac.
As you can see in Brent’s article, every application that supports AppleScript has a scripting dictionary. That dictionary describes the objects and properties of the app’s data model. So just learn to poke around in that data model to find what you want!
Begin by opening the Script Editor application in your Applications > Utilities folder. Then, from the File menu, select “Open Dictionary….” At that point, every application that supports AppleScript will be listed — more than you probably imagined! Select the System Preferences app from the list and click “Choose.”
At this point, you’ll see a Standard Suite and System Preferences listed in a tree browser. The standard suite lists commands like “open,” classes like “window,” and other things that are common to most scripting dictionaries. The interesting stuff is in the other scripting suite: System Preferences. When you select it, you’ll see a command named “reveal” and three classes (object types) named “application,” “pane,” and “anchor.”
When you look at “application,” you’ll see two things: elements and properties. Elements are collections of objects that are managed by the selected object. The properties list data maintained by the selected object.
So an application contains panes. That sounds promising. In a new Script Editor window, create a simple script to show all the pane objects:
Our goal is to open the Accessibility view of the security pane, so look through the Result in the output until you find something useful like:
Learn more about it by looking at its “localized name” property:
Security & Privacy. Bingo! Now try writing another script that uses that “pane id” along with the “reveal” command we saw earlier:
System Preferences just showed you the pane. Now let’s figure out how to get to the right view. Start by querying for the only elements contained in a pane, the anchor objects:
Lo and behold, we see:
That’s what we want. It also shows the hierarchy of the objects in System Preferences: an application has panes, which in turn have anchors. So let’s tweak our script:
Done! Now imagine how helpful that could be to a user who needs to add accessibility permissions for your app. Rather than tell the user how to navigate to that preference panel, you just open it for him or her. Nice.
Wrapping Up
There you have it: everything you need to know about controlling another app from your own app. Whether you’re giving users the ability to automate their workflows or simply enabling internal functionality in your app, AppleScript is a powerful component of every Mac application, even if it’s running in a sandbox. Hopefully this tutorial has given you new tools and insight on how to take advantage of these capabilities in your own projects!
macOS third-party applications were not sandboxed before the introduction of iOS. They could freely access system files and resources. But then iOS came along in 2007 with sandboxing required for applications right from the start. After its launch in 2011, it became standard for any third-party app on the Mac App Store.
Not all third-party apps are sandboxed, which can pose a significant security risk for MacOS users. So here’s a quick overview of what sandboxing is, why it’s crucial for security, and how to manually run apps in a sandbox on Mac.
What is Sandboxing?Mac Run App In Sandbox Mode
The term “sandbox” is what it sounds like — keeping apps separate by giving each its sandbox area to cavort around in. A sandbox area is a directory that an app uses to store information. It can access some data necessary to function but needs to request access to data or system resources that are not located inside the box.
This approach is based on the idea of least privilege. Sandboxing allows apps only to have access to the data and resources that they need to function. For example, a basic note-taking app doesn’t require access to contacts, email, or even the internet. It depends on the app and what the user wants to do with it, of course.
Developers create sandboxed apps via specific permissions through App Sandbox entitlement. But that’s not really important here since this is about apps that don’t come pre-sandboxed. Luckily, macOS also lets users create a sandbox for apps through sandboxing commands — more on that in a bit.
Why is Sandboxing Important for Security?
https://siteninja434.weebly.com/ford-street-racing-game-download-for-pc.html. People consider sandboxing an app when they:
Sandboxing doesn’t eliminate the potential for apps or websites to do harm, but it minimizes the damage an app can do. By cutting down on what the app can do and see, users have more control over what the app could exploit. It works not only with malicious apps but also applications with vulnerabilities that outside actors could potentially exploit.
The security benefits are obvious. Restricting access controls limits the number of damage apps can do to the system as well as how much information it can steal. How to edit an app on mac. But keep in mind that sandboxed apps tend to be slower and have less functionality than non-sandboxed apps. This is why many developers offer a watered-down sandbox version of their app on the Mac App Store and a full release on their websites.
Run Browser In Sandbox
Moreover, sandboxing apps doesn’t protect against every potential threat they represent. It doesn’t necessarily add to the user’s privacy, either. While sandboxing is essential for security, users still need to use other security tools as well.
Take privacy, for example. Sandboxing does nothing to make a browsing session more private. As anyone who has ever Googled “what is my IP” knows, that’s not something that you can hide by limiting app permissions. So using a VPN is still necessary. The same goes for antivirus software — sandboxing doesn’t eliminate malware; it only inhibits the damage it can do.
How to Run Mac Apps in a Sandbox
Now it’s down to the most crucial part — setting up an app in a sandbox. Keep in mind that this is a process of trial and error. There are some things that every app needs to function, and they aren’t always obvious from the start.
Now how does one actually do it? Sandboxing an app was introduced with the Leopard version of Mac OS X. You can do it in one of two ways:
Most users prefer using the sandbox-exec command, so here’s a short overview of how that process works:
You will need to create a separate script for every app that you want to sandbox on your Mac. There are a couple of resources out there for those that wish to sandbox their apps on Mac and need some help. Paolo Fabio Zaino has a good step by step breakdown in his blog post, How to run your Applications in a Mac OS X sandbox to enhance security.
In a Nutshell
Sandboxing an app isn’t a simple process and will take time to master, as it’s a case by case process for each app. But it is worth the effort to ensure security on Mac devices that have third-party apps installed. The risk of malware or exploitable vulnerabilities in third-party apps is too significant to ignore.
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