SELinux on Additional Distributions

Please report success or progress to the SELinux mailing list when working with a new distribution. The primary issues when integrating SELinux into a new distribution are:

Incorporating the SELinux userspace patches

As noted on the Userland Packages page, there are a number of userspace packages with patches for SELinux in order to leverage the SELinux kernel features. These patches must be ported to the packages included in a new distribution. When porting to a new distribution, it is likely best to port the latest SELinux patches from the Fedora Core development tree, as it has the most complete and up-to-date set of SELinux patches presently.

Labeling the Files

SELinux maintains security labels on files, and provides new labels when creating files, however, when installing SELinux, the files provided by the distribution must be given labels. Since different distributions place files in different locations the labels for the distributions files will need to be defined. Many are the same from distribution to distribution. Many are not.

Necessary Policy Changes

The example policy included with NSA's SELinux distribution is relatively general, and often ensuring that a distributions files are properly labeled is most of the work in getting to a working policy. However, applications and particularly system daemons specific to the distribution may need policy updates to allow the new components all the access they need to function correctly.