Re: chroot question

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas55@pobox.com>]

On Jan 20, 2007, at 2:37 PM, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 05:47:36PM +0000, Anton Piatek wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I have a amd64 install of debian with a 32bit chroot for a couple  
> > of apps.
> > This works great, but I have a question.
> >
> > Is it possible to have an application inside the 32bit chroot  
> > launch an
> > application on my main 64 bit system? (e.g. a photo browsing  
> > program in the
> > 32bit chroot launching gimp, which is installed in my main 64 bit  
> > system).
> > I currently launch my 32bit programs with schroot and am hoping I  
> > can set
> > something to make specific programs outside the chroot available...
> >
> > I cannot think of how this can be achieved, so any ideas are  
> > welcomed.
>
> I've never played with chroot but if you add ssh to the chroot  
> could you
> ssh the main box from within the chroot?  If so, you could set up ssh
> with public-key so no passwords were required and it would be
> transparent.
>
> I wonder.
>
> Doug.

That might work.  Here's another way that might be a little less  
resource intensive but would require some development effort to  
package-up for easy use:

Create a named-pipe (also called "fifo" -- see "man fifo") in the / 
tmp directory of the chroot area.  This will be available to the 32- 
bit processes inside the chroot and also to the 64-bit processes  
(because the chroot area is a subset of the main 64-bit file-system  
space).  Write to it in the 32-bit area and read from it in the 64- 
bit area.  If you need full-duplex communication, you'll have to have  
two pipes (I think.)

I haven't tried it myself, but it should work.

Rick