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So I have a program I don't trust. It is packaged in a standard installer format with a setup.exe.

I want to be able to run the resulting installed application using wine, but I don't want it to inadvertently hack the host or infect other applications that are verified, stored under the existing wine prefix.

Is the answer just to create another wine prefix ? Or can that lead to issues as well ? Certainly parts of the operating system are exposed to programs run under wine.

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sandwine has an example in its readme for sandboxed execution of an installer followed by execution of the installed application — Winamp in the example. You can allow or block access to X11, to the network and so on. Please be sure to read the section on its threat model in the main readme.

PS: For some installers, it may be possible to open the installer's .exe file with e.g. file-roller and extract the contained .exe file manually. That would bypass the installer code.

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Sure: use virtualization to protect your machine. Create a virtual instance of the OS, and run that app in wine there.

For example, a Ubuntu instance in VirtualBox can be set up easily, and there are many other virtualization tools, such as QEMU and KVM. An advantage of virtualization is that you can set up an instance with a different OS from the main OS, so that any attempt to attack the machine needs to get through two different operating systems.

BTW, you can submit any application (less than a few hundred MB) to VirusTotal to have it scanned by more than 50 anti-malware sites at once! The security analysis would likely be more definitive than any testing an individual would do.

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  • well that is indeed an answer, but was hoping for something that wouldn't eat up 2-4 gb's of ram and 2 of my four cores... but a valid answer. is there a way to do this inside the host os ? Jan 2, 2023 at 22:32
  • Here is a list here: sourceforge.net/software/sandbox/linux Virtual Machines is in the list
    – John
    Jan 3, 2023 at 1:12
  • I was hoping that I could avoid creating a VM, which is why I posted the question. I was hoping there was something like the answer above. Jun 9, 2023 at 22:02

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