| NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | CAVEATS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON | |
|  | 
selinux_status_open(3)  SELinux API documentation  selinux_status_open(3)
       selinux_status_open, selinux_status_close, selinux_status_updated,
       selinux_status_getenforce, selinux_status_policyload and
       selinux_status_deny_unknown - reference the SELinux kernel status
       without invocation of system calls
       #include <selinux/avc.h>
       int selinux_status_open(int fallback);
       void selinux_status_close(void);
       int selinux_status_updated(void);
       int selinux_status_getenforce(void);
       int selinux_status_policyload(void);
       int selinux_status_deny_unknown(void);
       Linux 2.6.37 or later provides a SELinux kernel status page; being
       mostly placed on /sys/fs/selinux/status entry. It enables
       userspace applications to mmap this page with read-only mode, then
       it informs some status without system call invocations.
       In some cases that a userspace application tries to apply heavy
       frequent access control; such as row-level security in databases,
       it will face unignorable cost to communicate with kernel space to
       check invalidation of userspace avc.
       These functions provides applications a way to know some kernel
       events without system-call invocation or worker thread for
       monitoring.
       selinux_status_open() tries to open(2) /sys/fs/selinux/status and
       mmap(2) it in read-only mode. The file-descriptor and pointer to
       the page shall be stored internally; Don't touch them directly.
       Set 1 on the fallback argument to handle a case of older kernels
       without kernel status page support.  In this case, this function
       tries to open a netlink socket using avc_netlink_open(3) and
       overwrite corresponding callbacks (setenforce and policyload).
       Thus, we need to pay attention to the interaction with these
       interfaces, when fallback mode is enabled.
       selinux_status_close() unmap the kernel status page and close its
       file descriptor, or close the netlink socket if fallbacked.
       selinux_status_updated() processes status update events. There are
       two kinds of status updates.  setenforce events will change the
       effective enforcing state used within the AVC, and policyload
       events will result in a cache flush.
       This function returns 0 if there have been no updates since the
       last call, 1 if there have been updates since the last call, or -1
       on error.
       selinux_status_getenforce() returns 0 if SELinux is running in
       permissive mode, 1 if enforcing mode, or -1 on error.  Same as
       security_getenforce(3) except with or without system call
       invocation.
       selinux_status_policyload() returns times of policy reloaded on
       the running system, or -1 on error.  Note that it is not a
       reliable value on fallback-mode until it receive the first event
       message via netlink socket.  Thus, don't use this value to know
       actual times of policy reloaded.
       selinux_status_deny_unknown() returns 0 if SELinux treats policy
       queries on undefined object classes or permissions as being
       allowed, 1 if such queries are denied, or -1 on error.
       selinux_status_open() returns 0 or 1 on success. 1 means we are
       ready to use these interfaces, but netlink socket was opened as
       fallback instead of the kernel status page.  On error, -1 shall be
       returned.
       Any other functions with a return value shall return its
       characteristic value as described above, or -1 on errors.
       These functions are not thread-safe, you have to protect them from
       concurrent calls using exclusive locks when multiple threads are
       executing.
       mmap(2), avc_netlink_open(3), security_getenforce(3),
       security_deny_unknown(3)
       This page is part of the selinux (Security-Enhanced Linux user-
       space libraries and tools) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki⟩.
       If you have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki/Contributing⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-08-04.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org
kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com         22 January 2011       selinux_status_open(3)
Pages that refer to this page: avc_init(3), avc_open(3)