man
8 setfiles
setfiles(8) SELinux User Command setfiles(8)
NAME
setfiles - set SELinux file security contexts.
SYNOPSIS
setfiles [-c policy] [-C] [-d] [-l] [-m] [-n] [-e directory] [-E] [-p]
[-s] [-v] [-W] [-F] [-I|-D] [-T nthreads] spec_file pathname ...
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the setfiles program.
This program is primarily used to initialize the security context
fields (extended attributes) on one or more filesystems (or parts of
them). Usually it is initially run as part of the SELinux installation
process (a step commonly known as labeling).
It can also be run at any other time to correct inconsistent labels, to
add support for newly-installed policy or, by using the -n option, to
passively check whether the file contexts are all set as specified by
the active policy (default behavior) or by some other policy (see the
-c option).
If a file object does not have a context, setfiles will write the de-
fault context to the file object's extended attributes. If a file ob-
ject has a context, setfiles will only modify the type portion of the
security context. The -F option will force a replacement of the entire
context.
OPTIONS
-c check the validity of the contexts against the specified binary
policy.
-C If only relabeling errors are encountered during the file tree
walks, exit with status 1 rather than 255.
-d show what specification matched each file.
-e directory
directory to exclude (repeat option for more than one direc-
tory).
-E treat conflicting specifications as errors, such as where two
hardlinks for the same inode have different contexts.
-f infilename
infilename contains a list of files to be processed. Use "-" for
stdin.
-F Force reset of context to match file_context for customizable
files, and the default file context, changing the user, role,
range portion as well as the type.
-h, -? display usage information and exit.
-i ignore files that do not exist.
-I ignore digest to force checking of labels even if the stored
SHA256 digest matches the specfiles SHA256 digest. The digest
will then be updated provided there are no errors. See the NOTES
section for further details.
-D Set or update any directory SHA256 digests. Use this option to
enable usage of the security.sehash extended attribute.
-l log changes in file labels to syslog.
-m do not read /proc/mounts to obtain a list of non-seclabel mounts
to be excluded from relabeling checks. Setting this option is
useful where there is a non-seclabel fs mounted with a seclabel
fs mounted on a directory below this.
-n don't change any file labels (passive check).
-o outfilename
Deprecated - This option is no longer supported.
-p show progress by printing the number of files in 1k blocks un-
less relabeling the entire OS, that will then show the approxi-
mate percentage complete. Note that the -p and -v options are
mutually exclusive.
-q Deprecated and replaced by -v. Has no effect on other options or
on program behavior.
-r rootpath
use an alternate root path. Used in meta-selinux for OpenEmbed-
ded/Yocto builds to label files under rootpath as if they were
at /
-s take a list of files from standard input instead of using a
pathname from the command line (equivalent to "-f -" ).
-v show changes in file labels and output any inode association pa-
rameters. Note that the -v and -p options are mutually exclu-
sive.
-W display warnings about entries that had no matching files by
outputting the selabel_stats(3) results.
-0 the separator for the input items is assumed to be the null
character (instead of the white space). The quotes and the
backslash characters are also treated as normal characters that
can form valid input. This option finally also disables the end
of file string, which is treated like any other argument. Use-
ful when input items might contain white space, quote marks or
backslashes. The -print0 option of GNU find produces input
suitable for this mode.
-T nthreads
use up to nthreads threads. Specify 0 to create as many threads
as there are available CPU cores; 1 to use only a single thread
(default); or any positive number to use the given number of
threads (if possible).
ARGUMENTS
spec_file
The specification file which contains lines of the following
form:
regexp [type] context | <<none>>
The regular expression is anchored at both ends. The op-
tional type field specifies the file type as shown in the
mode field by the ls(1) program, e.g. -- to match only
regular files or -d to match only directories. The con-
text can be an ordinary security context or the string
<<none>> to specify that the file is not to have its con-
text changed.
The last matching specification is used. If there are
multiple hard links to a file that match different speci-
fications and those specifications indicate different se-
curity contexts, then a warning is displayed but the file
is still labeled based on the last matching specification
other than <<none>>.
pathname ...
The pathname for the root directory of each file system to be
relabeled or a specific directory within a filesystem that
should be recursively descended and relabeled or the pathname of
a file that should be relabeled. Not used if the -f or the -s
option is used.
EXIT STATUS
setfiles exits with status 0 if it encounters no errors. Fatal errors
result in status 255. Labeling errors encountered during file tree
walk(s) result in status 1 if the -C option is specified and no other
kind of error is encountered, and in status 255 otherwise.
NOTES
1. setfiles operates recursively on directories. Paths leading up the
final component of the file(s) are not canonicalized before label-
ing.
2. If the pathname specifies the root directory and the -v option is
set and the audit system is running, then an audit event is auto-
matically logged stating that a "mass relabel" took place using the
message label FS_RELABEL.
3. To improve performance when relabeling file systems recursively the
-D option to setfiles will cause it to store a SHA256 digest of the
spec_file set in an extended attribute named security.sehash on
each directory specified in pathname ... once the relabeling has
been completed successfully. These digests will be checked should
setfiles -D be rerun with the same spec_file and pathname parame-
ters. See selinux_restorecon(3) for further details.
The -I option will ignore the SHA256 digest from each directory
specified in pathname ... and provided the -n option is NOT set,
files will be relabeled as required with the digests then being up-
dated provided there are no errors.
EXAMPLE
Fix labeling of /var/www/ including all sub-directories, using targeted policy file context definitions and list all context changes
# setfiles -v /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts /var/www/
List mislabeled files in user home directory and what the label should be based on targeted policy file context definitions
# setfiles -nv /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts ~
Fix labeling of files listed in file_list file, ignoring any that do not exist
# setfiles -vif file_list /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts
AUTHOR
This man page was written by Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au>. The
program was written by Stephen Smalley <stephen.smalley.work@gmail.com>
SEE ALSO
restorecon(8), load_policy(8), checkpolicy(8)
10 June 2016 setfiles(8)