Confusion about transition when httpd_t process calls sendmail

[Paul Howarth]

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:06:15 -0500
Jason L Tibbitts III <tibbs at math.uh.edu> wrote:

> Tough to come up with a subject for this one; it's really messing with
> my fragile mind.  I have a system running RT3, which uses mod_perl or
> somesuch to run within the web server process.  It needs to send mail,
> so it calls /usr/bin/sendmail, which happens to be exim on this
> system. If I understand things correctly, the sendmail process is
> supposed to start as or somehow transition to exim_t where it is then
> allowed to access whatever exim_t is allowed to access.
> 
> This was all working until I had to reboot the machine for unrelated
> reasons today.  Now, RT3 can't send mail, and the audit logs seem to
> indicate that httpd_t is being denied things like writing to the exim
> spool file location.  It really seems like somehow the transition to
> exim_t is not happening.  Perhaps this will illustrate:
> 
> > s ausearch -ts today |grep exim|audit2allow
> 
> #============= httpd_t ==============
> allow httpd_t exim_spool_t:dir { search setattr read write getattr
> remove_name open add_name }; allow httpd_t exim_spool_t:file { rename
> setattr read lock create write getattr unlink open append }; allow
> httpd_t proc_net_t:file { read getattr open }; allow httpd_t
> self:capability fowner; allow httpd_t smtp_port_t:tcp_socket
> name_connect;
> 
> Currently I've simply disabled selinux until I can understand what has
> happened.  yum.log indicates that selinux-policy(-targeted) were
> updated on the 13th, but everything was working fine up until the
> today's reboot.  No other related packages have been updated
> recently, and nothing was updated today.  I suppose the reboot did
> boot me into a new kernel version (from
> kernel-2.6.29.6-217.2.3.fc11.x86_64 to
> kernel-2.6.30.5-43.fc11.x86_64).
> 
> > ls -lZ /usr/sbin/exim
> -rwsr-xr-x. root root system_u:object_r:exim_exec_t:s0 /usr/sbin/exim*
> 
> (which is what /usr/bin/sendmail is linked to via half a dozen
> symlinks due to alternatives).

Just a thought but is your httpd_can_sendmail boolean still set?

Paul.