Security enthusiasts wanted: from beginners up to SELinux experts to make up the SELinux "Confined Users (SIG)" to foster Fedora's security capabilities
discussion.fedoraproject.org
SELinux provides a strong security measure that can make an SELinux-enabled operating system a type of “fortress”: the so-called “confined users” [1] [2] [3], which add security and isolation capabilities that are in several respects comparable to containers but without many of their restrictions in GUI use cases (this topic is focused on desktop use cases, not server, infra, and such). By default, SELinux does not enforce much within user accounts but only around them. But in graphical desktop...
  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
    301·
    9 months ago

    SELinux has long suffered from usability issues. Many commercial software packages require SELinux be disabled.

    Fix the docs, improve error messages, and create a GUI to improve usage.

    • joojmachine
      121·
      9 months ago

      Hate to be the type of person to comment this, but patches more than welcome

      for real though, even a small contribution to the docs helps a ton

          • Kazumara@feddit.de
            10·
            9 months ago

            Recently a supplier of ours announced that we could finally host their shitty java app on Linux instead of paying fucking Oracle for Solaris. So we were eager to hear the requirements. It was RHEL 8.4 or something, a version that was already EOL at the time.

            They can’t even update their distros apparently.

    • eeleech@lemm.ee
      16·
      9 months ago

      afaik yes, at least the arch kernel has selinux enabled, but you need to install the user space tools from the AUR.

    • Sh1nyM3t4l4ss@lemmy.world
      5·
      9 months ago

      I’m not aware of another one. Some other distros like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE ship AppArmor instead, which does similar things but isn’t considered quite as secure.

      I know plenty of other popular distros don’t ship any Mandatory Access Control system at all which seems like a very bad security practice to me. Same thing with Firewalls.

      • Baut [she/her] auf.@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        8·
        9 months ago

        Nitpick: it’s not that AppArmor isn’t as secure, it’s just that SELinux is more powerful. The security always is up to the profiles.
        If you were to compare the policies for Fedora and e.g. Debian, I would assume Fedora has better ones though lol

        • ladyanita22@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 months ago

          For sure. I believe Debian’s AppArmor integration is a little bit of an afterthought and there’s lots of patches missing as Canonical likes to keep many improvements downstream.

      • Neon 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇹🇼🇮🇱 @lemmy.world
        6·
        9 months ago

        yeah, same. I am currently on NixOS, but looking to move away because it’s lacking support any MAC. I really love NixOS and it’s declarative approach to things, but i can’t live with such a large security hole in my home Network.

        As soon as i find a Distro that has MAC and allows for at least semi-declarative configuration, i am switching. But being able to declare an env/dconf setting in my config and sync it across all devices is just too powerful

          • Neon 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇹🇼🇮🇱 @lemmy.world
            1·
            9 months ago

            while i think that ansible is really cool, it’s not the same as Nix.

            correct me if i’m wrong, but afaik Ansible just modifies the current state of the System with a declarative configuration.

            Nix reverts your system back to install and then applies the configuration. The result is that in Nix if i remove something from the configuration.nix it is as if it never existed, whereas on Ansible it stays unless i manually run a task to uninstall it.

  • hottari
    243·
    9 months ago

    SELinux will not magically make your system more secure. Desktop insecurity mostly boils down to poor user choices. E.g Granting vscode full access to your home folder and installing some random extension.

    Flatpaks and similar “container” tools are the obvious tools to use if you care about desktop security which the Linux ecosystem still generally deems as a lesser priority over being able to gain “rootful” permissions to carry out administrative tasks.

  • joojmachine
    131·
    9 months ago

    Anyone even slightly interested in this, join!

    Seriously, I didn’t know jack about SELinux before joining the SIG and now I know a little less than jack about it (I tried confining my user and managed to be unable to login to my system)

      • joojmachine
        2·
        9 months ago

        You can just take a look at the links in the thread if you want to start testing, and can help report issues with your experiences in our Pagure repo, I still need to report mine to mnow if it’s a thing with GDM or if I just did something wrong

        • iamak@infosec.pub
          1·
          9 months ago

          Okay. Also how beneficial would this be for my résumé if I’m trying to get into cyber security field?

  • msage@programming.dev
    9·
    9 months ago

    A bit dated experience, but I wanted to make a ‘simple’ web app (nginx/fpm/psql) SELinux compatible in 2014.

    After reading the docs, it seemed I needed three layers of configuration just to make a policy. For two ports and two folders, that seemed way too complicated and absolutely not worth it.

  • raw
    81·
    9 months ago

    I love it and it really makes my Desktop more secure. Switching it off, has lead to installing hostile or insecure software within months. When it was introduced, i felt controlled by it, but actually i saw, what a mess came out of it when i disabled that. Today i feel protected, out of eperience, even if i know shirt about how it exacly works, but i saw stupid software harming my system when it was disabled.