Transparent Command Portal

What is it?

Flatimage has a portal mechanism to execute commands in host machine, the output and return code is returned in the guest as if the command was executed in it (thus transparent).

How to Use

Examples:

• Check if the host contains the thunar file manager: fim_portal sh -c 'command -v thunar'
• Open thunar in the host machine: fim_portal thunar
• Open thunar in the host machine (full path): fim_portal /bin/thunar
• Open the desktop folder with thunar on the host machine: fim_portal thunar ~/Desktop

How it Works

Three FIFOs are created, for stdout, stderr and the exit code, the guest connects to the stdout and stderr FIFOs as a reader. The command to be executed in the host machine and the paths to the FIFOs are serialized to the host daemon; the daemon creates a child process and replaces its stdout and stderr pipes with the provided FIFOs. After the command is finished, the exit code is sent through the exit pipe and the guest process exits with the same code returned from the child host process.