[Wine] Question about running SecuROM under WINE

[Austin English]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 1:39 AM, Elliander <wineforum-user at winehq.org> wrote:
> Thanks for your quick reply.
>
> Ok, so how do I know if I run it as root? I am not very familiar with the layout in Ubuntu yet. The way I installed WINE was through

Unless you used the 'sudo' command, or logged in as root, then you're fine :-).

> System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager
>
> And the rest was automatic.
>
> When I view Applications > Wine
>
> I see it says a C: Drive. I assume it simulates the C: structure in it's own file then.
>
> So if it's not root, it won't interact with programs outside of WINE?

Not quite. Wine can still interact with programs outside of Wine. Wine
has the same permissions as your user. But by running as a regular
user, you minimize the damage it can do. If you're not root, then you
can't overwrite system binaries, etc.

> But even if it isn't root, if I assume that if WINE recreates the Windows Registry and installs in the same way, then any program that SecuROM might interfere with in Windows might also interfere with the > same other programs running under WINE?

Possibly, yes, if in the same prefix.

> As far as being safe goes, what it a prefix, and how do I set that up? I want to make sure that if I run any potentially dangerous program it won't interfere with any other program I may want WINE to run.

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-f2f5f3bc795247f11962ea613a1f9e15657ad552

> On a similar topic to ask, I wonder. Would WINE enable a Malicious program, such as a Virus, written for Windows, affect Ubuntu? And if so, what would keep it from affect the file structure outside of the
> WINE C: Drive?

Same as earlier. Wine has the same permissions as your user. You can
remove the Z:\ symlink to help minimize damage, but this is an area
where something like AppArmor that has more fine grained security
controls would be a more suitable protection.

-- 
-Austin