Working with SELinux booleans
One of the methods of manipulating SELinux policies is by toggling SELinux booleans. Ever since Chapter 2, Understanding SELinux Decisions and Logging, where we used the secure_mode_policyload
boolean, these tunable settings have been popping up over the course of this book. With their simple ON/OFF state, they enable or disable parts of the SELinux policy. Policy developers and administrators use SELinux booleans to toggle parts of the policy that not all deployments always need to be active, but some still do.
These booleans are added to the policy based on feedback from, and with the help of, the community at large. By establishing which policy rules are necessary against those that are optional, SELinux developers can provide an SELinux policy that works for a majority of systems, even when the uses of these systems differ.
Listing SELinux booleans
An overview of SELinux booleans can be obtained by using the semanage
command with the boolean...