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UnixReview.com
September 2006
Book Review: SELinux by Example
Reviewed by Emmett Dulaney
SELinux by Example
Frank Mayer, Karl Macmillan and David Caplan
Prentice Hall, 2007
ISBN: 0-13-196369-4
456 pages, $44.99
SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) has been talked about for quite a while and been written about for almost as long. What is surprising is that there has never really been a book written that functions as a hands-on guide for its implementation in the real world. This despite the fact that it is supported in Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, and others. SELinux by Example fills that void and does so admirably.
The 14 chapters are divided between 3 parts. Part I, SELinux Overview, looks at the background, concepts, and architecture of SELinux. This part is fewer than 60 pages long and if you have familiarity with the concept, you can skim through the first two chapters quickly. I would advocate not skimming through the third chapter — architecture — though, since understanding the framework and implementation is crucial to success.
The second part, SELinux Policy Language, is the real meat of the book. Over the course of seven chapters and 175 pages, it looks at object classes and permissions, type enforcement, roles and users, constraints, multilevel security, conditional policies, and object labeling.
The third part focuses on creating and writing SELinux security policies. The first chapter in Part III offers an original example of a policy, and the other three look at reference policy, managing a system, and writing policy modules.
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