getcon(3)                           SELinux API documentation                           getcon(3)



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  per‐
       formed 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,  setcon()
       will fail if there are any other threads running in the same process.

       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 AT coker.au                     21 December 2011                               getcon(3)