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Bug 1835254

Summary: error "Failed to load selinux policy, freezing" on boot due to corrupted SELinux policy files
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Reporter: Tomer <tomer.s>
Component: libsemanageAssignee: Vit Mojzis <vmojzis>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: BaseOS QE Security Team <qe-baseos-security>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 7.6CC: dwalsh, lvrabec, mmalik, plautrba, ssekidde, stephen.smalley.work, vmojzis, zpytela
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of:
: 1838762 (view as bug list) Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-05-21 18:16:01 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 1838762    
Attachments:
Description Flags
Boot error none

Description Tomer 2020-05-13 13:50:39 UTC
Created attachment 1688025 [details]
Boot error

Description of problem:
I have a code which runs a bunch of `semanage fcontext -a -t <type> <file>` commands on every initialising, and on one occurrence, a power outage happened while the command was still running.
After the power came back, I booted the server and this error message appeared, and the boot hanged.

I successfully booted the server by setting `selinux=0` to the kernel parameters, and then I noticed that selinux targeted policy files:
/etc/selinux/targeted/policy/policy.31
/etc/selinux/targeted/active/modules/100/*

were empty (0 size).

It successfully reproduced almost every time.
Reinstalling selinux-policy-targeted, running `touch /.autorelabel` and than reboot, resolved the issue.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
libsemanage-2.5-14.el7.x86_64
selinux-policy-3.13.1-252.el7_7.6.noarch
selinux-policy-targeted-3.13.1-252.el7_7.6.noarch
policycoreutils-2.5-33.el7.x86_64
policycoreutils-python-2.5-33.el7.x86_64


How reproducible:
Almost every time

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a file: `touch /tmp/abc`
2. Run `semanage fcontext -a -t var_t "/tmp/abc"`
3. DO NOT LET THE COMMAND FINISHED - it will take about 2-3 seconds, during that time, force shutdown the server.

Actual results:
Server is not bootable unless disabling SELinux using the kernel parameters

Expected results:
Server boot normally

Additional info:
I noticed that if I add to `semanage fcontext` the flag `-N` it does not reproduced, so the issue is probably related to the policy reload which this flag prevents. It probably does not sync the filesystem after the reload and does not do safe writes.

Comment 3 Stephen Smalley 2020-05-14 12:38:59 UTC
Upstream fix proposed here:
https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/5ebc4bc6.1c69fb81.a8850.464e@mx.google.com/T/#u

Comment 4 Lukas Vrabec 2020-05-21 18:16:01 UTC
This issue was not selected to be included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 because it is seen either as low or moderate impact to a small number of use-cases. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is in Maintenance Support 1 Phase, which means that qualified Critical and Important Security errata advisories (RHSAs) and Urgent Priority Bug Fix errata advisories (RHBAs) may be released as they become available.

We will now close this issue, but if you believe that it qualifies for the Maintenance Support 1 Phase, please re-open.

Bugzilla ticket created against RHEL-8:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1838762