This sandbox is a website that allows users to try out the Flick programming language without having to install the compiler themselves. The webiste consists of a code editor where users can type their Flick program and a console where users can see their program's output.
Note
The sandbox is currently under development.
The website runs users' Flick programs subject to the following constraints:
- Time: Programs timeout after 5 seconds
- Network: Programs will not have any internet access
- Disk: Programs do not have read or write access to the disk
- Memory: TBD
- CPU: TBD
The server is hosted on an AWS EC2 instance and is primarily based on Fast API. See below for more details about how the backend and frontend are implemented.
When the frontend requests to compile/run a program, the server passes the user's Flick source code to the backend. The backend consists of a Docker container (for compilation and running) and a program that passes data between the container and the frontend.
The Docker container is used to isolate all Flick programs that are run, by ensuring that only the Docker container compiles and runs user-written Flick programs. The container ensures that user-written Flick programs can't access the network. Also, the compiled programs is executed without read/write access to ensure that user-written Flick programs can't access the filesystem.
The Flick progam is deleted after being run, and is run using bash's "timeout" command so that it times out after 5 seconds.
The frontend is writen in Next.js using shadcn/ui, and it uses WebSockets for continuous communication with the backend
when programs are running.