SELinux supports Roles Based Access Control (RBAC), some Linux roles are login roles, while other roles need to be transition into.
Note: Examples in this man page will use the staff_u SELinux user.
Non login roles are usually used for administrative tasks. For example, tasks that require root privileges. Roles control which types a user can run processes with. Roles often have default types assigned to them.
The default type for the dbadm_r role is dbadm_t.
The newrole program to transition directly to this role.
newrole -r dbadm_r -t dbadm_t
sudo is the preferred method to do transition from one role to another. You setup sudo to transition to dbadm_r by adding a similar line to the /etc/sudoers file.
USERNAME ALL=(ALL) ROLE=dbadm_r TYPE=dbadm_t COMMAND
sudo will run COMMAND as staff_u:dbadm_r:dbadm_t:LEVEL
When using a a non login role, you need to setup SELinux so that your SELinux user can reach dbadm_r role.
Execute the following to see all of the assigned SELinux roles:
semanage user -l
You need to add dbadm_r to the staff_u user. You could setup the staff_u user to be able to use the dbadm_r role with a command like:
$ semanage user -m -R 'staff_r system_r dbadm_r' staff_u
If you want to allow dbadm to manage files in users home directories, you must turn on the dbadm_manage_user_files boolean.
setsebool -P dbadm_manage_user_files 1
If you want to allow database admins to execute DML statement, you must turn on the postgresql_selinux_unconfined_dbadm boolean.
setsebool -P postgresql_selinux_unconfined_dbadm 1
If you want to allow dbadm to read files in users home directories, you must turn on the dbadm_read_user_files boolean.
setsebool -P dbadm_read_user_files 1
The SELinux user type dbadm_t can manage files labeled with the following file types. The paths listed are the default paths for these file types. Note the processes UID still need to have DAC permissions.
mysqld_db_t
/var/lib/mysql(/.*)?
mysqld_etc_t
/etc/mysql(/.*)?
/etc/my.cnf
mysqld_home_t
/root/.my.cnf
/home/[^/]*/.my.cnf
mysqld_log_t
/var/log/mysql.*
mysqld_tmp_t
mysqld_unit_file_t
/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysqld.*
mysqld_var_run_t
/var/run/mysqld(/.*)?
/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
postgresql_db_t
/var/lib/pgsql(/.*)?
/var/lib/sepgsql(/.*)?
/var/lib/postgres(ql)?(/.*)?
/usr/share/jonas/pgsql(/.*)?
/usr/lib/pgsql/test/regress(/.*)?
postgresql_etc_t
/etc/postgresql(/.*)?
/etc/sysconfig/pgsql(/.*)?
postgresql_log_t
/var/lib/pgsql/.*.log
/var/log/rhdb/rhdb(/.*)?
/var/log/postgresql(/.*)?
/var/log/postgres.log.*
/var/lib/pgsql/logfile(/.*)?
/var/log/sepostgresql.log.*
/var/lib/sepgsql/pgstartup.log
postgresql_tmp_t
postgresql_var_run_t
/var/run/postgresql(/.*)?
systemd_passwd_var_run_t
/var/run/systemd/ask-password(/.*)?
/var/run/systemd/ask-password-block(/.*)?
semanage permissive can also be used to manipulate whether or not a process type is permissive.
semanage module can also be used to enable/disable/install/remove policy modules.
semanage boolean can also be used to manipulate the booleans
system-config-selinux is a GUI tool available to customize SELinux policy settings.