Keeping SELinux on (was Attention: Proprietary video driver users (ATI, Nvidia, etc.))

[Robert Nichols]

Benjy Grogan wrote:
> I'm in favor of SELinux.  I've heard that when writing these policies 
> the developers have actually improved the applications themselves.  They 
> realized that an application didn't really need this or that permission 
> and so they adjusted the code and wrote an even better policy.  SELinux 
> seems to have some use in debugging software.
> 
> If people are afraid of SELinux I think what's need is more education on 
> it.  more "layman" articles getting across a few of the "ideas" behind 
> SELinux.

The problem with SELinux is that anyone whose use of a computer involves 
more than clicking on icons is pretty much forced to become an SELinux
guru.  Simple things like "ping xxx >$HOME/ping.result" failing because
ping isn't allowed to write to user_home_t don't make people big fans
of SELinux.  I fought with SELinux for quite a while, left it in
permissive mode, ran audit2allow on whatever complaints turned up, and
resolved to use enforcing mode if I could ever get through a week
without seeing more "AVC ... denied" complaints.  Never made it.
Finally gave up, deleted the ACLs from the file systems, and added
"selinux=0" as a kernel parameter.

-- 
Bob Nichols         Yes, "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.