Wine and Kernel Access

Question

My knowledge on the topic is rather limited, but does one have Kernel access/the general ability to change programs at run time whilst running Wine?

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For Clarification: Can the user of the computer access any information they want via the Kernel on the underlying system running Wine, or does normal Windows security still apply?

Answer 1

As far as I know, Wine is a sandbox¹. Windows programs are encapsulated within WINE and can't access memory outside of the Wine-Process, meaning that a Windows program can never crash your whole system.

At least, this is how I remember it.

Edit: Just found something in the FAQ of Wine, is Wine a Sandbox?

Edit2: ¹: Turns out that Wine is a weak Sandbox if it comes to system calls and the filesystem...but there's nothing about memory access in the FAQ...so I might still be right about that one. ;)

Answer 2

Your question isn't quite clear; however WINE doesn't need any special privileges to run.

WINE compatibility varies largely from an application to another; the only sure way is to test it. For common applications, there are guidelines posted on the wine AppDB.

Answer 3

Can the user of the computer access any information they want via the Kernel on the underlying system running Wine, or does normal Windows security still apply?

Well, Windows security applies to the extent that Wine emulates/implements it. So this depends on what exactly you mean by "Windows security".

What definitely will apply is the security of the underlying OS that you run wine on.

To the hosting OS, wine is just another application, and all restrictions WRT filesystem access, net access etc. apply. So a Windows EXE run in wine can do all the things a regular native program can. So if you want to restrict an app running in wine, the best thing is to run wine under a user account with limited privileges, or in a chroot (if the hosting OS has this).