Stephen Tweedie - Red Hat

TUTORIAL: Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux)

To provide system security end systems must be able to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements. Operating system security mechanisms are the foundation for ensuring such separation. Unfortunately, existing mainstream operating systems lack the critical security feature required for enforcing separation: mandatory access control. As a consequence, application security mechanisms are vulnerable to tampering and bypass, and malicious or flawed applications can easily cause failures in system security.

SELinux is a major new feature already available in cutting-edge linux distributions based on 2.6 kernels, such as Debian and Fedora, and likely to become mainstream over the next year or so, by which time all good linux sysadmins will need a basic understanding of it.

This technical SELinux tutorial is targetted at those who already have a good knowledge of linux systems and who wish to understand the technical details of SELinux. You will learn essential information about how SELinux works, how to use it and how to set about tailoring default security policies to meet your own specific requirements.

Further information on SELinux is available in these technical reports.