setfilecon(3) — Linux manual page

setfilecon(3)           SELinux API documentation           setfilecon(3)

NAME         top

       setfilecon, fsetfilecon, lsetfilecon - set SELinux security
       context of a file

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <selinux/selinux.h>

       int setfilecon(const char *path, const char *con);

       int setfilecon_raw(const char *path, const char *con);

       int lsetfilecon(const char *path, const char *con);

       int lsetfilecon_raw(const char *path, const char *con);

       int fsetfilecon(int fd, const char *con);

       int fsetfilecon_raw(int fd, const char *con);

DESCRIPTION         top

       setfilecon() sets the security context of the file system object.

       lsetfilecon() is identical to setfilecon, except in the case of a
       symbolic link, where the link itself has it's context set, not the
       file that it refers to.

       fsetfilecon() is identical to setfilecon, only the open file
       pointed to by filedes (as returned by open(2)) has it's context
       set in place of path.  Since libselinux 3.4 a file opened via
       O_PATH is supported.

       setfilecon_raw(), lsetfilecon_raw(), and fsetfilecon_raw() behave
       identically to their non-raw counterparts but do not perform
       context translation.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, zero is returned. On failure, -1 is returned and errno
       is set appropriately.

ERRORS         top

       If there is insufficient space remaining to store the extended
       attribute, errno is set to either ENOSPC, or EDQUOT if quota
       enforcement was the cause.

       If extended attributes are not supported by the filesystem, or are
       disabled, errno is set to ENOTSUP.

       The errors documented for the stat(2) system call are also
       applicable here.

SEE ALSO         top

       selinux(3), freecon(3), getfilecon(3), setfscreatecon(3)

COLOPHON         top

       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
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       man-pages@man7.org

russell@coker.com.au          1 January 2004                setfilecon(3)

Pages that refer to this page: getfilecon(3),  matchpathcon(3),  matchpathcon_checkmatches(3),  selinux_lsetfilecon_default(3),  set_matchpathcon_flags(3)

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