Provided by: policycoreutils_3.8.1-1_amd64 

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.
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)