Whatever Happened to Sandboxfs?

a year ago

sandboxfs was developed to improve Bazel's sandboxing performance on macOS by replacing slow symlink forests with a virtual file system.
The project aimed to reduce sandbox creation overhead by using an in-memory manifest and RPC to manage file hierarchies efficiently.
Despite initial promise, sandboxfs faced challenges including performance issues, kernel bugs, and ecosystem changes like Apple deprecating kernel extensions and OSXFUSE going closed source.
The author learned valuable lessons about Rust, FUSE, and file systems but ultimately abandoned the project due to insurmountable obstacles.
The need for efficient sandboxing in Bazel remains, especially for macOS users, but the benefits are less clear with the rise of remote execution.

Hasty Briefsbeta