NAME

       getcon, getprevcon, getpidcon - get SELinux security context of a process

       freecon, freeconary - free memory associated with SELinux security contexts

       getpeercon - get security context of a peer socket

       setcon - set current security context of a process

SYNOPSIS

       #include <selinux/selinux.h>

       int getcon(char **context);

       int getcon_raw(char **context);

       int getprevcon(char **context);

       int getprevcon_raw(char **context);

       int getpidcon(pid_t pid, char **context);

       int getpidcon_raw(pid_t pid, char **context);

       int getpeercon(int fd, char **context);

       int getpeercon_raw(int fd, char **context);

       void freecon(char *con);

       void freeconary(char **con);

       int setcon(char *context);

       int setcon_raw(char *context);

DESCRIPTION

       getcon() retrieves the context of the current process, which must be free'd with freecon.

       getprevcon() same as getcon but gets the context before the last exec.

       getpidcon() returns the process context for the specified PID.

       getpeercon() retrieves context of peer socket, and set *context to refer to it, which must be free'd with
       freecon().

       freecon() frees the memory allocated for a security context.

       freeconary() frees the memory allocated for a context array.

       If con is NULL, no operation is performed.

       setcon() sets the current security context of the process to a new value.  Note that use of this function
       requires  that  the  entire application be trusted to maintain any desired separation between the old and
       new security contexts,  unlike  exec-based  transitions  performed  via  setexeccon(3).   When  possible,
       decompose your application and use setexeccon(3) and execve(3) instead.

       Since  access  to file descriptors is revalidated upon use by SELinux, the new context must be explicitly
       authorized in the policy to use the descriptors opened by the old context if that is desired.  Otherwise,
       attempts by the process to use any existing descriptors  (including  stdin,  stdout,  and  stderr)  after
       performing the setcon() will fail.

       A  multi-threaded  application  can perform a setcon() prior to creating any child threads, in which case
       all of the child threads will inherit the new context.  However, prior to Linux  2.6.28,  setcon()  would
       fail  if  there are any other threads running in the same process since this would yield an inconsistency
       among the security contexts of threads sharing the same memory space.  Since Linux  2.6.28,  setcon()  is
       permitted  for  threads within a multi-threaded process if the new security context is bounded by the old
       security context, where the bounded relation is defined through typebounds statements in the  policy  and
       guarantees that the new security context has a subset of the permissions of the old security context.

       If  the  process  was  being  ptraced  at  the  time of the setcon() operation, ptrace permission will be
       revalidated against the new context and the setcon() will fail if it is not allowed by policy.

       getcon_raw(), getprevcon_raw(), getpidcon_raw(), getpeercon_raw() and setcon_raw() behave identically  to
       their non-raw counterparts but do not perform context translation.

RETURN VALUE

       On error -1 is returned.  On success 0 is returned.

SEE ALSO

       selinux(8), setexeccon(3)

russell@coker.com.au                            21 December 2011                                       getcon(3)