NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

selinux_status_open(3)    SELinux API documentation   selinux_status_open(3)

NAME         top

       selinux_status_open,   selinux_status_close,  selinux_status_updated,
       selinux_status_getenforce, selinux_status_policyload and selinux_sta‐
       tus_deny_unknown  - reference the SELinux kernel status without invo‐
       cation of system calls

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <selinux/avc.h>
       int selinux_status_open(int fallback);
       void selinux_status_close(void);
       int selinux_status_updated(void);
       int selinux_status_getenforce(void);
       int selinux_status_policyload(void);
       int selinux_status_deny_unknown(void);

DESCRIPTION         top

       Linux 2.6.37 or later provides a SELinux kernel status page; being
       mostly placed on /sys/fs/selinux/status entry. It enables userspace
       applications to mmap this page with read-only mode, then it informs
       some status without system call invocations.
       In some cases that a userspace application tries to apply heavy
       frequent access control; such as row-level security in databases, it
       will face unignorable cost to communicate with kernel space to check
       invalidation of userspace avc.
       These functions provides applications a way to know some kernel
       events without system-call invocation or worker thread for
       monitoring.
       selinux_status_open() tries to open(2) /sys/fs/selinux/status and
       mmap(2) it in read-only mode. The file-descriptor and pointer to the
       page shall be stored internally; Don't touch them directly.  Set 1 on
       the fallback argument to handle a case of older kernels without
       kernel status page support.  In this case, this function tries to
       open a netlink socket using avc_netlink_open(3) and overwrite
       corresponding callbacks ( setenforce and policyload).  Thus, we need
       to pay attention to the interaction with these interfaces, when
       fallback mode is enabled.
       selinux_status_close() unmap the kernel status page and close its
       file descriptor, or close the netlink socket if fallbacked.
       selinux_status_updated() informs us whether something has been
       updated since the last call.  It returns 0 if nothing was happened,
       however, 1 if something has been updated in this duration, or -1 on
       error.
       selinux_status_getenforce() returns 0 if SELinux is running in
       permissive mode, 1 if enforcing mode, or -1 on error.  Same as
       security_getenforce(3) except with or without system call invocation.
       selinux_status_policyload() returns times of policy reloaded on the
       running system, or -1 on error.  Note that it is not a reliable value
       on fallback-mode until it receive the first event message via netlink
       socket.  Thus, don't use this value to know actual times of policy
       reloaded.
       selinux_status_deny_unknown() returns 0 if SELinux treats policy
       queries on undefined object classes or permissions as being allowed,
       1 if such queries are denied, or -1 on error.
       Also note that these interfaces are not thread-safe, so you have to
       protect them from concurrent calls using exclusive locks when
       multiple threads are performing.

RETURN VALUE         top

       selinux_status_open() returns 0 or 1 on success. 1 means we are ready
       to use these interfaces, but netlink socket was opened as fallback
       instead of the kernel status page.  On error, -1 shall be returned.
       Any other functions with a return value shall return its
       characteristic value as described above, or -1 on errors.

SEE ALSO         top

       mmap(2), avc_netlink_open(3), security_getenforce(3),
       security_deny_unknown(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the selinux (Security-Enhanced Linux user-space
       libraries and tools) project.  Information about the project can be
       found at ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see 
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki/Contributing⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux⟩ on 2017-07-05.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or
       you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail
       to man-pages@man7.org
kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com           22 January 2011        selinux_status_open(3)