Use the rpm -qa | grep selinux, rpm -q policycoreutils, and rpm -qa | grep setroubleshootcommands to confirm that the SELinux packages are installed. This guide assumes the following packages are installed: selinux-policy-targeted, selinux-policy, libselinux, libselinux-python, libselinux-utils, policycoreutils,setroubleshoot, setroubleshoot-server, setroubleshoot-plugins. If these packages are not installed, as the Linux root user, install them via the yum install package-name command. The following packages are optional:policycoreutils-gui, setroubleshoot, selinux-policy-devel, and mcstrans.
Before SELinux is enabled, each file on the file system must be labeled with an SELinux context. Before this happens, confined domains may be denied access, preventing your system from booting correctly. To prevent this, configure SELINUX=permissive in /etc/selinux/config:
# 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
As the Linux root user, run the reboot command to restart the system. During the next boot, file systems are labeled. The label process labels all files with an SELinux context:
*** Warning -- SELinux targeted policy relabel is required.
*** Relabeling could take a very long time, depending on file
*** system size and speed of hard drives.
****
Each * character on the bottom line represents 1000 files that have been labeled. In the above example, four* characters represent 4000 files have been labeled. The time it takes to label all files depends upon the number of files on the system, and the speed of the hard disk drives. On modern systems, this process can take as little as 10 minutes.
In permissive mode, SELinux policy is not enforced, but denials are still logged for actions that would have been denied if running in enforcing mode. Before changing to enforcing mode, as the Linux root user, run thegrep "SELinux is preventing" /var/log/messages command as the Linux root user to confirm that SELinux did not deny actions during the last boot. If SELinux did not deny actions during the last boot, this command does not return any output. Refer to Chapter 7, Troubleshooting for troubleshooting information if SELinux denied access during boot.
If there were no denial messages in /var/log/messages, configure SELINUX=enforcing in/etc/selinux/config:
# 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=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
# targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
# mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted
Reboot your system. After reboot, confirm that the getenforce command returns Enforcing:
$ /usr/sbin/getenforce
Enforcing
As the Linux root user, run the /usr/sbin/semanage login -l command to view the mapping between SELinux and Linux users. The output should be as follows:
Login Name SELinux User MLS/MCS Range
__default__ unconfined_u s0-s0:c0.c1023
root unconfined_u s0-s0:c0.c1023
system_u system_u s0-s0:c0.c1023