selinux-policy/www/html/index.html

<h1>Project Overview</h1>
<p>
The SELinux Reference Policy project (refpolicy) is creating a complete SELinux
policy as an alternative to the existing strict and targeted policies available
from <a href="http://selinux.sf.net">http://selinux.sf.net</a>. Once complete,
this policy will be able to be used as the system policy for a variety of
systems and used as the basis for creating other policies. Refpolicy is based on
the current strict and targeted policies, but aims to accomplish many additional
goals.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
Refpolicy is under active development, with support and full time development
staff from <a href="http://www.tresys.com/selinux">Tresys Technology</a>. The
first release is available from the <a href="index.php?page=download">download</a>
page. This release is far from complete and is not usable as a drop in
replacement for the existing policies. It is for interested policy developers
and community members to examine and comment upon. The
<a href="index.php?page=status">status</a> page has more details on what is
included in the current release. This project is just getting started and we are
looking for policy developers interested in <a href="index.php?page=contributing">contributing</a>.
</p>
<br>
<h1>Project Goals</h1>
<h2>Security</h2>
<p>Security is the reason for existence for SELinux policies and must,
therefore, always be the first priority. The common view of security as a binary
state (secure or not secure) is not a sufficient goal for developing an SELinux
policy. In reality, different systems have different requirements and purposes
and corresponding differences in the meaning of secure. What is a fundamental
security flaw on one system might be the acceptable, or even the primary
functionality, of another. The challenge for a system policies like the current
strict and targeted policy or refpolicy is to support as many of these differring
security goals as is practical. To accomplish this refpolicy will provide:
</p>

<ul>
	<li><b>Security Goals:</b> clearly stated security goals will for each
		component of the policy. This will allow policy developers to
		determine if a given component meets their security needs.
	</li>
	<li><b>Flexible Base Policy:</b> a base policy that protects the basic
		operating system and serves as a foundation to the rest of the
		policy. This base policy should be able to support a variety of
		application policies with differing security goals.
	</li>
	<li><b>Application Policy Variations:</b> application policy variations
		that make different security tradeoffs. For example, two Apache
		policies might be created. One that is for serving read-only,
		static content that is severely restricted and another that is
		appropriate for dynamic content.
	</li>
	<li><b>Configuration Tools:</b> configuration tools that allow the
		policy developer to make important security decisions including
		defining roles, configuring networking, and trading legacy
		compatibility for increased security.
	</li>
	<li><b>Multi-Level Security</b>: MLS will be supported out-of-the-box
		without requiring destructive changes to the policy. It will be
		possible to compile and MLS and non-MLS policy from the same
		policy files by switching a configuration option.
	</li>

</ul>
<h2>Usability and Documentation</h2>
<p>
The difficulty and complexity of creating SELinux policies has become the number
one barrier to the adoption of SELinux. It also potentially reduces the security
of the policies: a policy that is too complex to easily understand is difficult
to make secure. Refpolicy aims to make aggressive improvements in this area,
making policies easier to develop, understand, and analyze. This will be
addressed through improved structuring and organization, the addition of
modularity and abstraction, and documentation. See
<a href="index.php?page=getting-started">getting started</a> and
<a href="index.php?page=documentation">documentation</a> for more information.
</p>
<h2>Flexibility and Configuration</h2>
<p>
Refpolicy aims to support a variety of policy configurations and formats,
including standard source policies, MLS policies, and
<a href="http://sepolicy-server.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=modules">loadable policy modules</a>
all from the same source tree. This is done through the addition of
infrastructure for automatically handling the differences between source and
loadable module based policies and the additional MLS fields to all policy
statements that include contexts.
</p>