Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Let me ask you this; when one goes out to a Web Site can those Web sites check to see if a Security Windows update is installed and then deal with the request according to the answer?

No, they cannot. There is no Windows installed on the computer to check the status of.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Watch out for Silverlight and plugins like that...

One Linux example is how Gnome Shell and http://extensions.gnome.org works. A plugin lets you manage/update your Gnome Shell extensions from the browser...

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

No, they cannot. There is no Windows installed on the computer to check the status of.

Let me amend my response... If you are running a browser in Wine it will report the browser and version of the browser and that the OS is Windows but not give an accurate version of Windows. Security updates are generally version specific. Also I can't think of a valid reason why anyone would do that when there are plenty of good browsers for Linux. There is no need to have a Linux system and run a Windows based browser under Wine. You can do it, but why bother?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Let me amend my response... If you are running a browser in Wine it will report the browser and version of the browser and that the OS is Windows but not give an accurate version of Windows. Security updates are generally version specific. Also I can't think of a valid reason why anyone would do that when there are plenty of good browsers for Linux. There is no need to have a Linux system and run a Windows based browser under Wine. You can do it, but why bother?

Originally, there were reasons. People who were trying to get Netflix to work on Linux tried running a browser like (eek) IE in Wine. The problem seemed to be that dang DRM Silverlight. Installing it on Linux through Wine didn't ever seem to work right. At least, not the newer versions. There was an open source version called Mono but it didn't provide the DRM code and the developers said it probably never would. Mono was more or less a Linux equivalent of Wine.

Anyway, I think this is all old news now. I think people found a way to get Netflix to load properly in Linux without needing Wine. I think they found a way to do it using Chrome or Chromium and maybe a plugin or something to change the browser info (like the OS field perhaps?).

As for the question about the exploits and stuff. I would think even if your Windows program was exploitable (, ie, IE), and you were running it through Wine...if you went to a website that detected the version of IE and tried exploiting it....even if they got through, I don't think they'd get to your Linux machine. I think it'd just be the Windows stuff that would get infected. I could be totally wrong on this though. It's just an assumption. I'll try to research it later today or tomorrow.

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Originally, there were reasons. People who were trying to get Netflix to work on Linux tried running a browser like (eek) IE in Wine. The problem seemed to be that dang DRM Silverlight. Installing it on Linux through Wine didn't ever seem to work right. At least, not the newer versions. There was an open source version called Mono but it didn't provide the DRM code and the developers said it probably never would. Mono was more or less a Linux equivalent of Wine..

no, MONO has nothing to do with silverlight,
it is an open-source .NET interpreter and it works better than M$ original .NET crap.

if you try to run a .NET app in wine, it will hand it over to MONO in the background.

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

As for the question about the exploits and stuff. I would think even if your Windows program was exploitable (, ie, IE), and you were running it through Wine...if you went to a website that detected the version of IE and tried exploiting it....even if they got through, I don't think they'd get to your Linux machine. I think it'd just be the Windows stuff that would get infected. I could be totally wrong on this though. It's just an assumption. I'll try to research it later today or tomorrow.

wine can run a virus, but it cant infect Linux executable files, and can only get as far as the Home folder.

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

just for clarity,

a wine install consists of 3 parts.

WINE,
MONO - the .NET interpreter,
and GHECKO, an IE substitute for programs that use browser functions.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

wine can run a virus, but it cant infect Linux executable files, and can only get as far as the Home folder.

I'm not sure about the Home folder statement, using an application in Wine I can access other drives and directories. What would prevent a virus from doing so as well?

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

it can acess any file based on user settings.
so it can read pretty much anything, but cant write to the system files, only the home folder and any other drives / folders you added.

keep in mind, a windows virus is going to be looking for windows file headers.
so it's only looking for EXE.COM and maybe some office files.
in theory those will only be in the folder used for wine installed stuff.
it cant find or infect windows system files or the registry because they dont exist.

also keep in mind, wine uses GHECKO ( a mozilla derivative) to emulate IE - so IE attack points dont exist.
not unless some dick installed a real IE version!

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

it cant find or infect windows system files or the registry because they dont exist.

I'm afraid that is incorrect. There are windows/system32 and windows/system folders in Wine and there is a registry:

https://www.winehq.org/docs/wineusr-guide/using-regedit

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

the files in those folders are not exactly real.
open some in a hex editor!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

no, MONO has nothing to do with silverlight,
it is an open-source .NET interpreter and it works better than M$ original .NET crap.

if you try to run a .NET app in wine, it will hand it over to MONO in the background.

You're right Stj, sorry. For some reason, I was thinking about how Wine has trouble with .NET applications and how you have to install MONO. I meant to say Moonlight was the DRM free open-source equivalent to Silverlight. Thank you for the correction.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

just for clarity,

a wine install consists of 3 parts.

WINE,
MONO - the .NET interpreter,
and GHECKO, an IE substitute for programs that use browser functions.

On certain systems, I believe you have to install Mono separately. I want to say the package manager usually handles installing MONO when you install the Wine package, unless things have changed since I last played with it. On my system, I believe I had to install it separately. Can't remember if that is the OpenSuse installation or if that was the Gentoo setup I had.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Gecko, not Ghetto
But yes Wine only will allow corruption of the current user and whatever drives are mapped to what wine can actually access. If you gave it rights to your DVDRW or full drive, it could muck with that too. However it will only affect what it knows how to affect, if it does end up finding a Linux native binary, it likely will end up trying to encrypt it (if it's that kind of malware...)

I think most people have their Wine have full access to their home folders, so yes, cryptolocker can potentially still touch your user files. So BACK UP OFTEN and might still be best to just run questionable software in its own user or VM.

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

more importantly, only use wine when you really have to - dont use it for office type shit or web browsing.
specially web browsing.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

I'd probably be more afraid of some sort of back door getting opened up via Wine. I know you can easily use something like Metasploit to create an EXE (or whatever else) to do malicious stuff, like allow remote connections to your PC, etc. I'd think maybe an EXE like that might work in Wine. On my system, when Wine was installed, I saw some Wine processes running in the background all the time. I didn't like that.

[keeney123]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

Seems to me if Linux OS programmers got together and made a better system then Windows and then marketed it to users that would be better. Then the programmers could collaborate across the world using all the knowledge world wide to better the computing world.

[stj]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

On my system, when Wine was installed, I saw some Wine processes running in the background all the time. I didn't like that.

that shouldnt happen.

tunning "top" in a console should only show wine running when your running a windows program.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

that shouldnt happen.

tunning "top" in a console should only show wine running when your running a windows program.

I didn't think it was normal. I wondered if I got infected, just the Wine stuff though, from running keygens and stuff through there. I mean, another possibility is Wine crashed but didn't terminate all the child processes associated with Wine and just kept running in the background.

[ddscentral]

Re: Wine (Windows emulator for Linux) Thumbs Up!

I don't think Windows programs running in Wine can access any files outside Wineprefix they're running in.
If you think you got infected, all you have to do is create a new Wineprefix.