From SELinux Wiki
 Global Configuration Files
Listed in the sections that follow are the common configuration files used by SELinux and are not policy specific. The two most important files are:
- /etc/selinux/config - This defines the policy to be activated and its enforcing mode.
- /etc/selinux/semanage.conf - This is used by the SELinux policy configuration subsystem for modular or CIL policies.
 /etc/selinux/config File
If this file is missing or corrupt no SELinux policy will be loaded (i.e. SELinux is disabled). The file man page is selinux_config(5), this is because 'config' has already been taken. The config file controls the state of SELinux using the following parameters:
SELINUX=enforcing|permissive|disabled SELINUXTYPE=policy_name SETLOCALDEFS=0|1 REQUIREUSERS=0|1 AUTORELABEL=0|1
|SELINUX|| This entry can contain one of three values:
SELinux security policy is enforced.
SELinux logs warnings instead of enforcing the policy (i.e. the action is allowed to proceed).
No SELinux policy is loaded.
Note that this configures the global SELinux enforcement mode. It is still possible to have domains running in permissive mode and/or object managers running as disabled, permissive or enforcing, when the global mode is enforcing or permissive.
|SELINUXTYPE|| The policy_name is used as the directory name where the active policy and its configuration files will be located. The system will then use this information to locate and load the policy contained within this directory structure.
The policy directory must be located at:
|SETLOCALDEFS|| This optional field should be set to 0 (or the entry removed) as the policy store management infrastructure (semanage(8) / semodule(8)) is now used.
If set to 1, then init(8) and load_policy(8) will read the local customisation for booleans and users.
|REQUIRESEUSERS|| This optional field can be used to fail a login if there is no matching or default entry in the seusers file or if the file is missing.
It is checked by the libselinux function getseuserbyname(3) that is used by SELinux-aware login applications such as PAM(8).
If it is set to 0 or the entry missing:
getseuserbyname(3) will return the GNU / Linux user name as the SELinux user.
If it is set to 1:
getseuserbyname(3) will fail.
|AUTORELABEL|| This is an optional field. If set to '0' and there is a file called .autorelabel in the root directory, then on a reboot, the loader will drop to a shell where a root logon is required. An administrator can then manually relabel the file system.
If set to '1' or the parameter name is not used (the default) there is no login for manual relabeling, however should the /.autorelabel file exists, then the file system will be automatically relabeled using fixfiles -F restore.
In both cases the /.autorelabel file will be removed so the relabel is not done again.
Example config file contents are:
# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system. # SELINUX= can take one of these three values: # enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced. # permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing. # disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded. SELINUX=permissive # # SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values: # targeted - Targeted processes are protected, # mls - Multi Level Security protection. SELINUXTYPE=targeted
 /etc/selinux/semanage.conf File
The semanage.config(5) file controls the configuration and actions of the semanage(8) and semodule(8) set of commands using the following parameters:
module-store = method policy-version = policy_version expand-check = 0|1 file-mode = mode save-previous = true|false save-linked = true|false disable-genhomedircon = true|false handle-unknown = allow|deny|reject bzip-blocksize = 0|1..9 bzip-small true|false usepasswd = true|false ignoredirs dir [;dir] ... [verify kernel] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [verify module] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [verify linked] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [load_policy] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [setfiles] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [sefcontext_compile] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] [load_policy] path = <application_to_run> args = <arguments> [end] # libsepol (v2.4) with CIL support add the following: store-root = <path> compiler-directory = <path> ignore-module-cache = true|false target-platform = selinux | xen
|module-store|| The method can be one of four options:
directlibsemanage will write directly to a module store. This is the default value.
sourcelibsemanage manipulates a source SELinux policy.
/foo/barWrite via a policy management server, whose named socket is at /foo/bar. The path must begin with a '/'.
foo.com:4242Establish a TCP connection to a remote policy management server at foo.com. If there is a colon then the remainder is interpreted as a port number; otherwise default to port 4242.
|policy-version||This optional entry can contain a policy version number, however it is normally commented out as it then defaults to that supported by the system.|
|expand-check|| This optional entry controls whether hierarchy checking on module expansion is enabled (1) or disabled (0). The default is 0.
It is also required to detect the presence of policy rules that are to be excluded with neverallow rules.
|file-mode||This optional entry allows the file permissions to be set on runtime policy files. The format is the same as the mode parameter of the chmod command and defaults to 0644 if not present.|
|save-previous||This optional entry controls whether the previous module directory is saved (TRUE) after a successful commit to the policy store. The default is to delete the previous version (FALSE).|
|save-linked|| This optional entry controls whether the previously linked module is saved (TRUE) after a successful commit to the policy store. Note that this option will create a base.linked file in the module policy store.
The default is to delete the previous module (FALSE).
|disable-genhomedircon||This optional entry controls whether the embedded genhomedircon function is run when using the semanage(8) command. The default is FALSE.|
|handle-unknown|| This optional entry controls the kernel behaviour for handling permissions defined in the kernel but missing from the policy (that are declared at the start of the base.conf (loadable policy) or policy.conf (monolithic policy)).
The options are: allow the permission, reject by not loading the policy or deny the permission. The default is deny. See the SELinux Filesystem section for how these are reported in /sys/fs/selinux.
Note: to activate any change, the base policy needs to be rebuilt with the semodule -B command.
|bzip-blocksize||This optional entry determines whether the modules are compressed or not with bzip. If the entry is 0, then no compression will be used (this is required with tools such as sechecker and apol). This can also be set to a value between 1 and 9 that will set the block size used for compression (bzip will multiply this by 100,000, so '9' is faster but uses more memory).|
|bzip-small||When this optional entry is set to TRUE the memory usage is reduced for compression and decompression (the bzip -s or --small option). If FALSE or no entry present, then does not try to reduce memory requirements.|
|usepasswd|| When this optional entry is set to TRUE semanage will scan all password records for home directories and set up their labels correctly.
If set to FALSE (the default if no entry present), then only the /home directory will be automatically re-labeled.
|ignoredirs||With a list of directories to ignore (separated by ';') when setting up users home directories. This is used by some distributions to stop labeling /root as a home directory.|
|[verify kernel]|| Start an additional set of entries that can be used to validate the kernel policy with an external application during the build process. There may be multiple [verify kernel] entries.
The validation process takes place before the policy is allowed to be inserted into the store with a worked example shown in the Policy Validation Example.
|[verify module]||Start an additional set of entries that can be used to validate each module by an external application during the build process. There may be multiple [verify module] entries.|
|[verify linked]||Start an additional set of entries that can be used to validate module linking by an external application during the build process. There may be multiple [verify linked] entries.|
|[load_policy]||Replace the default load policy application with this new policy loader. Defaults are either: /sbin/load_policy or /usr/sbin/load_policy.|
|[setfiles]||Replace the default set files application with this new set files. Defaults are either: /sbin/setfiles or /usr/sbin/setfiles.|
|[sefcontexts_compile]||Replace the default file context build application with this new builder. Defaults are either: /sbin/sefcontexts_compile or /usr/sbin/sefcontexts_compile.|
For libsepol (v2.4) with CIL support add the following entries:
|store-root||Specify an alternative store root path to use. The default is "/var/lib/selinux".|
|compiler-directory||Specify an alternate directory that will hold the High Level Language (HLL) to CIL compilers. The default is "/usr/libexec/selinux/hll".|
|ignore-module-cache||Whether or not to ignore the cache of CIL modules compiled from HLL. The default is false.|
|target-platform||Target platform for generated policy. Default is "selinux", the alternate is "xen".|
Example semanage.config file contents are:
# /etc/selinux/semanage.conf module-store = direct expand-check = 0 [verify kernel] path = /usr/local/bin/validate args = $@ [end]
 /etc/selinux/restorecond.conf and restorecond-user.conf Files
The restorecond.conf file contains a list of files that may be created by applications with an incorrect security context. The restorecond(8) daemon will then watch for their creation and automatically correct their security context to that specified by the active policy file context configuration files (located in the /etc/selinux/<policy_name>/contexts/files directory).
Each line of the file contains the full path of a file or directory. Entries that start with a tilde (~) will be expanded to watch for files in users home directories (e.g. ~/public_html would cause the daemon to listen for changes to public_html in all logged on users home directories).
Note that it is possible to run restorecond in a user session using the -u option (see restorecond(8)). This requires a restorecond-user.conf file to be installed as shown in the examples below.
Example restorecond.conf file contents are:
# /etc/selinux/restorecond.conf /etc/services /etc/resolv.conf /etc/samba/secrets.tdb /etc/mtab /var/run/utmp /var/log/wtmp
Example restorecond-user.conf file contents are:
# /etc/selinux/restorecond-user.conf # This entry expands to listen for all files created for all # logged in users within their home directories: ~/* ~/public_html/*
The optional newrole_pam.conf file is used by newrole(1) and maps applications or commands to PAM(8) configuration files. Each line contains the executable file name followed by the name of a pam configuration file that exists in /etc/pam.d.
 /etc/sestatus.conf File
The sestatus.conf(5) file is used by the sestatus(8) command to list files and processes whose security context should be displayed when the -v flag is used (sestatus -v).
The file has the following parameters:
[files] List of files to display context [process] List of processes to display context
Example sestatus.conf file contents are:
# /etc/sestatus.conf [files] /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /bin/bash /bin/login /bin/sh /sbin/agetty /sbin/init /sbin/mingetty /usr/sbin/sshd /lib/libc.so.6 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 /lib/ld.so.1 [process] /sbin/mingetty /sbin/agetty /usr/sbin/sshd
 /etc/security/sepermit.conf File
The sepermit.conf(5) file is used by the pam_sepermit.so module to allow or deny a user login depending on whether SELinux is enforcing the policy or not. An example use of this facility is the Red Hat kiosk policy where a terminal can be set up with a guest user that does not require a password, but can only log in if SELinux is in enforcing mode.
The entry is added to the appropriate /etc/pam.d configuration file, with the example shown being the /etc/pam.d/gdm file (the PAM Login Process section describes PAM in more detail):
#%PAM-1.0 auth <nowiki>[success=done ignore=ignore default=bad] pam_selinux_permit.so auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet auth required pam_env.so auth substack system-auth auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so account required pam_nologin.so account include system-auth password include system-auth session required pam_selinux.so close session required pam_loginuid.so session optional pam_console.so session required pam_selinux.so open session optional pam_keyinit.so force revoke session required pam_namespace.so session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start session include system-auth
The usage is described in pam_sepermit(5), with the following example that describes the configuration:
# /etc/security/sepermit.conf # # Each line contains either: # - an user name # - a group name, with @group syntax # - a SELinux user name, with %seuser syntax # Each line can contain an optional argument: # exclusive - only single login session will be allowed for # the user and the user's processes will be # killed on logout # # ignore - The module will never return PAM_SUCCESS status # for the user. # An example entry for 'kiosk mode': xguest:exclusive
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- ↑ The daemon uses functions in libselinux such as matchpathcon(3) to manage the context updates.