How To: List Files with SELinux Contexts

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When running a SELinux based setup, it might be useful to know how to quickly inspect files and directories to confirm their current SELinux context.

What is SELinux Context?

Every process and file in SELinux based environment can be labeled with additional information that helps fulfill RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), TE (Type Enforcement) and MLS (Multi-Level Security).

SELinux context is the combination of such additional information:

  • user
  • role
  • type
  • level

In the following example we can see that unconfined_u is the SELinux user, object_r is the role, user_home_dir_t is the object type (home user directory) and the SELinux sensitivity (MCS terminology) level is s0:

drwx------. 17 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_dir_t:s0 4096 Feb 19 12:14 .

Use ls -Z to show SELinux Context

Using ls command with -Z option will show the SELinux contexts. This command line option is totally made to be combined with other ls command options:

[greys@rhel8 ~]$ ls -alZ .
total 64
drwx------. 17 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_dir_t:s0 4096 Feb 19 12:14 .
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root system_u:object_r:home_root_t:s0 19 Jan 15 17:34 ..
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 2035 Feb 19 12:14 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 18 Oct 12 17:56 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 218 Jan 28 17:42 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 312 Oct 12 17:56 .bashrc
drwx------. 12 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:cache_home_t:s0 4096 Jan 21 06:41 .cache
drwx------. 14 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:config_home_t:s0 278 Jan 21 06:41 .config
drwx------. 3 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:dbus_home_t:s0 25 Jan 20 18:28 .dbus
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Documents
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Downloads
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:pulseaudio_home_t:s0 16 Jan 15 19:15 .esd_auth
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:iceauth_home_t:s0 1244 Jan 20 18:46 .ICEauthority
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 3434 Jan 22 18:06 id_rsa_4k
-rw-r--r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 737 Jan 22 18:06 id_rsa_4k.pub
-rw-rw-r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 21 Jan 28 17:53 infile2.txt
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 38 Jan 22 18:05 .lesshst
drwxr-xr-x. 3 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:gconf_home_t:s0 19 Jan 20 18:28 .local
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:audio_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Music
-rw-rw-r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 0 Jan 22 18:01 newkey
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Pictures
drwxrw----. 3 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:home_cert_t:s0 19 Jan 20 18:28 .pki
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Public
drwxrwxr-x. 4 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 165 Jan 16 11:00 screenFetch
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:xauth_home_t:s0 150 Jan 20 18:44 .serverauth.1859
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:xauth_home_t:s0 50 Jan 20 18:39 .serverauth.1893
drwx------. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:ssh_home_t:s0 70 Jan 22 18:07 .ssh
-rw-rw-r--. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 0 Jan 21 07:49 system_u:object_r:shell_exec_t:s0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Templates
drwxr-xr-x. 2 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 6 Jan 20 18:28 Videos
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 2874 Jan 29 04:40 .viminfo
-rw-------. 1 greys greys unconfined_u:object_r:xauth_home_t:s0 260 Feb 19 12:14 .Xauthority

See Also



Unix Tutorial Digest – February 4th, 2019

Unix Tutorial Digest: monthly digest of Unix/Linux topics

Thanks to the super busy January, this is actually the first Unix Tutorial digest of 2019! Lots of news and so many things to follow up and test now!

As always, Please get in touch if you want to suggest a useful link for the next digest.

Unix and Linux News

Software News

Interesting and Useful

Unix Tutorial articles

I made some New Years’ resolutions, one of them is a dramatically improved commitment to updating Unix Tutorial. As the result, I published more content in January 2019, than in the previous 9 years!

That’s it for today!

See Also



SElinux: Advanced sestatus usage

I learned something new today! Apparently, sestatus command can report security contexts of the key system files – really neat for quickly recognising possible security compromise.

Files and processes in /etc/sestatus.conf

The way this works is you must use the /etc/sestatus.conf file which contains list of files and list of processes that are checked for SElinux contexts. These are the most common security attack vectors, so SElinux notes them and helps you to quickly confirm their contexts using sestatus -v command.

VERY IMPORTANT: at this stage sestatus command does NOT highlight or warn you about any non-standard contextual changes. So the only thing is does is show you all the important files you selected and report their current contexts – if some of these have been changed, the task of recognising or fixing this is still on you.

You can add any files and process you like here, but here’s the default list in RHEL8:

[greys@rhel8 ~]$ cat /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

Files and processes contexts with sestatus

[greys@rhel8 ~]$ sestatus -v
SELinux status: enabled
SELinuxfs mount: /sys/fs/selinux.png
SELinux root directory: /etc/selinux.png
Loaded policy name: targeted
Current mode: enforcing
Mode from config file: enforcing
Policy MLS status: enabled
Policy deny_unknown status: allowed
Memory protection checking: actual (secure)
Max kernel policy version: 31

Process contexts:
Current context: unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
Init context: system_u:system_r:init_t:s0

File contexts:
Controlling terminal: unconfined_u:object_r:user_devpts_t:s0
/etc/passwd system_u:object_r:passwd_file_t:s0
/etc/shadow system_u:object_r:shadow_t:s0
/bin/bash system_u:object_r:shell_exec_t:s0
/bin/login system_u:object_r:login_exec_t:s0
/bin/sh system_u:object_r:bin_t:s0 -> system_u:object_r:shell_exec_t:s0
/sbin/agetty system_u:object_r:getty_exec_t:s0
/sbin/init system_u:object_r:bin_t:s0 -> system_u:object_r:init_exec_t:s0
/usr/sbin/sshd system_u:object_r:sshd_exec_t:s0

See Also