Jesús Leganés-Combarro "piranna"

piranna@gmail.com

Madrid, 13 de mayo de 2017

Who am I?

• PhD. candidate at URJC & freelancer
• @piranna at Github & Medium
• @el_piranna at Twitter
• PirannaFS
• ShareIt!
  • DataChannel-polyfill
• NodeOS
• Wasmachine

What's NodeOS?

• Minimal operating system build on top of   Linux , Node.js &   npm
• Created by Jacob Groundwater
• Currently, I'm the project main developer

What makes it special?

• Minimal design
  • kernel Linux + Node.js
  • Highly customizable
• Secure
  • virtual machine = isolated from underlying system
  • File permissions (too much) restrictive
    • Users isolated between them and the system
    • There's no priviledged users

• Cloud computing
  • Less resources = more instances
  • Easy administration (npm)
  • Systems only with the barely needed apps
• Education & "Homebrew"
  • Full code is directly accesible
  • Easy to learn, understand and program
  • Hightly customizable & "hacker friendly"

NodeOS Architecture

Layer 0: cross-toolchain

• Based on Cross Linux from Scratch
  • use musl instead of glibc
  • less memory & more performance
• Fully automated
  • Download, patch and compile the Linux headers, GCC and musl
  • It's only needed to define the target platform (default -> the host one)
• Integrated as a npm package
  • usable by other modules

Layer 1: barebones

Layer 1: barebones

• Linux 4.8.5
  • Statically compiled (no modules)
  • Default config for each plataform
  • Removed superfluos components
    • Old filesystems (minixfs, amiga...)
    • debug, profiling...
  • Added FUSE, CUSE & OverlayFS
  • CJKTTY patch
• Node.js v6.9.5 LTS
  • Added NodeOS version

Layer 1: barebones

• nodeos-init
  • minimal /init process
  • "safe net" against orfand processes
  • mount /dev (needed by Node.js)
  • cleanly shutdown the system when there's no more running processes
• Boots directly to a Node.js REPL

Layer 2: initramfs

Layer 2: initramfs

• Prepare a basic execution environment and mount the users' folders partition
• Run the users' init executables
• /usr/bin/env is written in Javascript

Layer 3: usersfs

Layer 3: usersfs

• Generate a users demo partition (read-write)
• Allow data persistence in a USB pendrive
• Easily interchangeable with a network-based system
  • Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3...
• Two example users: root & nodeos

root

• Optional, just only used to init global services
  • bin-getty: pseudo-terminals controler
  • ExclFS: exclusive access and ownership of /dev devices, one user each time
  • logon: administration of users' access
    • credentials stored in the user directory
    • anybody can access, file-level protection
    • could be changed for an external system like Facebook Connect, Google Account...
• Only user with access to other users' directories
  • needed by logon & system administration
  • only accesible booting in administrator mode
    • fully disable other users while we are on it

nodeos

• Plain user
• Shell, basic comands, system checks & demos
  • nsh
  • npm, ip, ifconfig, slap, dhcpjs
  • performance, loadtest
  • blessed-contrib
• Similar environment to what's found on other regular operating systems
  • Cleaner and simpler, it's not POSIX
  • Optimized for Node.js applications
  • Inspired on Plan9

Bonus: bootfs

Bonus: bootfs

• Generate a read-only boot partition hosting barebonesfs customized Linux kernel and initramfs
  • VFAT for Raspberry Pi (genfatfs)
  • ISO9660 for CD & USB (IsoHybrid)
• Can be combined with users' partition to build a persistent system
  • USB pendrive
  • hard disk
• External tool, integrated on the global build system

Own proyects

• blessed
• noGUI
• cpio-stream
• prompt
• node-kexec
• decompress-tar
• download
• jsdiff
• node-scanf
• tar-fs
• tar-stream
• cjktty-patch
• fuse-bindings
• GitBlog
• ifconfig
• node-canvas

Contributions

• node-bin-getty
• node-dhcpjs
• nodeos.github.com
• nodeos-mount
• sockios
• vinyl-fs
• node
• node-lib-pathsearch
• npm-remote-ls
• npm-path
• nsh
• prebuild
• publish-release
• serve-static
• node-byline
• node-suppose

NodeOS in 5 steps

1. Download source code from GitHub
2. Install system dependencies

   bin/install-dependencies

3. Install NodeOS build dependencies

   npm install

4. Generate image

   npm run build

5. Execute image

   npm start

Prebuild images

• QEmu
• CD ISOs / USB disk images
• Future
  • Docker (experimental)
  • WSL ("Bash on Windows")
  • USB "thumbs"

Conclusions

• 4652 stargazers on GitHub... and raising
• 13 team members
  • contributions from 28 developers only on main repo
• External contributions, independent projects, articles published on several tech websites...

Final of 9º Universitary Free Software Championship