Learn more about Application whitelisting in RHEL from our experts. Our Server Management Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

Application whitelisting in RHEL | All About

Did you know that Application whitelisting is a security practice that involves allowing only approved or trusted applications to run on a system?

Furthermore, it stops the execution of unauthorized or potentially malicious software.

This goes a long way in reducing the attack surface and boosting the overall security of a system.

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Linux distributions, we can implement application whitelisting using different tools and techniques.

According to our experts, we can set up application whitelisting in RHEL with tools like AppArmor or SELinux.

These are security frameworks that offer access control mechanisms. Furthermore, this allows us to specify fine-grained rules for what processes can and cannot do.

How to use SELinux for Application Whitelisting

Let’s take a look at how to use SELinux for application whitelisting:

SELinux is a Linux kernel security module that offers mandatory access controls. Additionally, it can be used to enforce fine-grained access policies on processes and files.

We can check if SELinux is already enabled on our system by running:

getenforce

If it is not already enforced, we can enable it by editing the /etc/selinux/config file and setting the SELINUX directive to enforce. Then, we have to reboot the system.

Furthermore, SELinux uses security labels to enforce access controls. We can allow certain applications to run by labeling their executable files. Then, we have to use the chcon command to change the security context of an executable file:

sudo chcon -t bin_t /path/to/your/application

In some cases, the default SELinux policies may be too restrictive. Then, we can create custom SELinux policies using tools like audit2allow and semodule.

These tools allow us to analyze audit logs and generate custom policies to allow necessary actions.

[Need assistance with a different issue? Our team is available 24/7.]

Conclusion

In brief, our Support Techs demonstrated how to use SELinux for Application whitelisting in RHEL.