How to troubleshoot SELinux issues

The popular belief is that it is very difficult to determine and fix SELinux issues. This stems from the fact that the logs get logged with the system audit. This log reading is not intuitive and, in fact, to the human eye is quite complex; but it isn’t.

Carrying on with the example of the httpd web server, consider the following sequence of commands:

1. As the root user, create the myfile file:

   # touch myfile

2. Move the myfile file to the web content directory:

   # mv myfile /var/www/html/

3. Use the curl command to get the contents of the myfile file published by the web server:

   # curl http://localhost/myfile

4. Observe the output:

Figure 12.7 – Creating the myfile web file

5. Use the grep command to search for the myfile string in the system audit log:

   # grep myfile /var/log/audit/audit.log
   ...
   type=AVC msg=audit(1689045662.823:264): avc:  denied  { getattr } for  ...