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 default context to the
       file object's extended attributes. If a file object 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 directory).

       -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 SHA1 digest matches
              the specfiles SHA1 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 SHA1 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  unless  relabeling  the
              entire  OS,  that will then show the approximate 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 OpenEmbedded/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 parameters.  Note that
              the -v and -p options are mutually exclusive.

       -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.   Useful  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  optional  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
                     context  can  be  an  ordinary  security  context  or the string <<none>> to
                     specify that the file is not to have its context changed.
                     The last matching specification is used. If there are multiple hard links to
                     a file that match different specifications and those specifications indicate
                     different security 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 labeling.

       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 automatically 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 SHA1 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   parameters.   See
           selinux_restorecon(3) for further details.

           The  -I  option  will  ignore  the  SHA1  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 updated provided there are no errors.

AUTHOR

       This  man  page  was  written  by  Russell  Coker <russell@coker.com.au>.  The program was
       written by Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>

SEE ALSO

       restorecon(8), load_policy(8), checkpolicy(8)

                                           10 June 2016                               setfiles(8)