Sandboxing in Lua 5.2

Question

I am learning from "Programing in Lua" by Roberto Ierusalimschy, and I found that in the book, the example of Sandboxing uses the function setfenv() to change the environment of a given function, but in lua 5.2 this function is no longer available.

I tried to load some values from a file (a configuration file) into a field in a table, but, in lua 5.2 I can't use setfenv ( so I can load the values in the given environment). After reading some articles about lua 5.2 I found that each function may have (or not) an upvalue called _ENV which serves as the environment, so, I tried the following code:

function sandbox(sb_func, sb_env)
    if not sb_func then return nil, "sandbox function not valid" end
    sb_orig_env = _ENV
    _ENV = sb_env -- yes, replaces the global _ENV
    pcall_res, message = pcall( sb_func )
    local modified_env = _ENV -- gets the environment that was used in the pcall( sb_func )
    _ENV = sb_orig_env
    return true, modified_env
end

function readFile(filename)
    code = loadfile(filename)
    res, table = sandbox(code, {})
    if res then
        --[[ Use table (modified_env) ]]--
    else
        print("Code not valid")
end

Replacing _ENV in the 'sandbox' function works well (can't access the regular fields), but, when the 'code' is executed it seems that it ignores that I replaced _ENV, it still can access regular fields (print, loadfile, dofile, etc).

Reading a little more, I found that lua 5.2 provides a function for this purpose, this function is loadin(env, chunk), which runs the given chunk in the given environment, but, when I try to add this function to my code, the function doesn't exist ( Is not present in the global _G field).

Some help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

When you assign to _ENV from within sandbox, you're not overwriting the global environment--you're replacing the _ENV upvalue of the currently running code. Adding calls to print(_ENV) may help you better understand the identities of the tables involved.

For example:

function print_env()
  print(_ENV)
end

function sandbox()
  print(_ENV) -- prints: "table: 0x100100610"
  -- need to keep access to a few globals:
  _ENV = { print = print, print_env = print_env, debug = debug, load = load }
  print(_ENV) -- prints: "table: 0x100105140"
  print_env() -- prints: "table: 0x100105140"
  local code1 = load('print(_ENV)')
  code1()     -- prints: "table: 0x100100610"
  debug.setupvalue(code1, 1, _ENV) -- set our modified env
  code1()     -- prints: "table: 0x100105140"
  local code2 = load('print(_ENV)', nil, nil, _ENV) -- pass 'env' arg
  code2()     -- prints: "table: 0x100105140"
end

The loadin function was present in some pre-release versions of Lua 5.2 but was removed before the final release. Instead, the Lua 5.2 load and loadfile functions take an env argument. You can also modify the _ENV of another function using debug.setupvalue.