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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Why do we hate SELinux? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This is not a troll post. I'm genuinely confused as to why SELinux gets so much of hate. I have to say, I feel that it's a fairly robust system. The times when I had issues with it, I created a custom policy in the relevant directory and things were fixed. Maybe a couple of modules here and there at the most. It took me about 15 minutes max to figure out what permissions were being blocked and copy the commands from. Red Hat's guide.

So yeah, why do we hate SELinux?

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (9 children)

I have a saying, "If it's not DNS, then it's Selinux". It blocks stuff so frequently it's a major time sink for us.

It is overly complex and difficult to understand, especially if you're developing and deploying software that does not have correct pre-rolled policies. A regular job for me is to help developers solve this - which generally means running their service, seeing what Selinux blocks on, and then applying a fix. Repeat 2-8 times until every way Selinux is trying to access a file is explicitly allowed. And sometimes, even software that comes via official repos has buggy selinux policies that break things.

Fortunately, there are tools to help you. Install setroubleshooter amd when something doesn't work, "grep seal /var/log/messages" and if it's selinux causing the problem, you'll find instructions showing you what went wrong and how to create an exception. I absolutely consider this tool essential when using any system with selinux enabled.

[–] med 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Is it not possible to run it in audit mode in dev and have it tell you what the would have blocked?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Permissive mode, and yes, you absolutely can. That shows warnings but doesn't actively block. But you still benefit from running setroubleshoot to actually figure out what and why it's blocked something, and how to mitigate that.

Permissive is also good in that you can get a bunch of blocks reported at once, instead of having to step through one at a time, which can be useful.

[–] med 2 points 2 weeks ago

That's what I was thinking, I know the pain of watching something run for ages, only to finally get past where it failed last time and run straight in to another stumbling block.

I don't envy you having to work in an SELinux environment with less than stellar developer understanding of policies and contexts.

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