sealert(8)sealert(8)NAMEsealert - setroubleshoot client tool
SYNOPSISsealert [-b] [-f local_id] [-h] [-s] [-S] [-l id] [-a file] [-u] [-p]
[-P plugin_name]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the sealert program.
sealert is the user interface component (either GUI or command line) to
the setroubleshoot system. setroubleshoot is used to diagnose SELinux
denials and attempts to provide user friendly explanations for a
SELinux denial (e.g. AVC) and recommendations for how one might adjust
the system to prevent the denial in the future.
In a standard configuration setroubleshoot is composed of two compo‐
nents, setroubleshootd and sealert.
setroubleshootd is a system daemon which runs with root privileges and
listens for audit events emitted from the kernel related to SELinux.
The audit daemon must be running. The audit daemon sends a dbus mes‐
sage to the setroubleshootd daemon when the system gets an SELinux AVC
denial. The setroubleshootd daemon then runs a series of analysis
plugins which examines the audit data related to the AVC. It records
the results of the analysis and signals any clients which have attached
to the setroubleshootd daemon that a new alert has been seen.
sealert can be run in either a GUI mode or a command line mode. In both
instances sealert run as a user process with the privileges associated
with the user. In GUI mode it attaches to a setroubleshootd server
instance and listens for notifications of new alerts. When a new alert
arrives it alerts the desktop user via a notification in the status
icon area. The user may then click on the alert notification which
will open an alert browser. In addition to the current alert sealert
communicates with the setroubleshootd daemon to access all prior alerts
stored in the setroubleshoot database.
The user may elect to tag any given alert as "ignore" in the browser
which prevents any future notification for the given alert. This is
useful when a user is already aware of a reoccurring problem.
sealert may also be run in command line mode. The two most useful com‐
mand line options are -l to "lookup" an alert ID and -a to "analyze" a
log file. When setroubleshootd generates a new alert it assigns it a
local ID and writes this as a syslog message. The -l lookup option may
then be used to retrieve the alert from the setroubleshootd alert data‐
base and write it to stdout. This is most useful when setroubleshootd
is being run on a headless system without the GUI desktop alert facil‐
ity. The -a analyze option is equivalent to the "Scan Logfile" command
in the browser. The log file is scanned for audit messages, analysis is
performed, alerts generated, and then written to stdout.
LOG FILE SCANNING
You may ask sealert to parse a file accumulating all the audit messages
it finds in that file. As each audit event is recognized it is pre‐
sented for analysis which may generate an alert report if the analysis
was successful. If the same type of event is seen multiple times
resulting in the same report the results are coalesced into a single
report. The report count field will indicate the number of times the
tool thought it saw the same issue. The report will also include a list
of every line number on which it found an audit record which contrib‐
uted to the coalesced report. This will allow you to coordinate the
contents of the file with the analysis results if need be.
Log file scanning may be initiated from the sealert browser via the
File::ScanLogFile menu or from the command line via 'sealert -a file‐
name'. Please note that sealert runs as a user level process with the
permissions of the user running it. Many system log files are readable
by root only. To work around this if you have root access one can copy
the file as root to a temporary file and change it's permissions. This
is a good solution when scanning via the GUI as a normal user. Or you
might consider su'ing to root and run the analysis via the command line
(e.g. sealert-a filename).
The audit records in the log file must be valid syntactically correct
audit messages or the parser will ignore them.
OPTIONS-b --browser
Launch the browser
-f --fix
Execute the fix command for the avc with the given uuid and
plugin, requires --plugin option.
-h --help
Show this message
-s --service
Start sealert service, Usually used by dbus.
-S --noservice
Start sealert without dbus service as stand alone app
-l --lookupid id
Lookup alert by id, if id is wildcard * then return all alerts
-a --analyze file
Scan a log file, analyze it's AVC's
-u --user
logon as user
-p --password
set user password
-P --plugin
Set plugin name associated with the --fix option
AUTHOR
This man page was written by John Dennis <jdennis@redhat.com> and Dan
Walsh <dwalsh@redhat.com>.
SEE ALSOselinux(8),
20061121 sealert(8)
