selinux Plugin

Purpose

The selinux plugin for libcharon automatically installs and updates trap policies with generic SELinux contexts/labels. This is especially useful as responder in roadwarrior scenarios, where start_action=trap can’t be used.

The plugin is disabled by default and can be enabled with the ./configure option

--enable-selinux
Even if the plugin is not necessary for your specific scenario (e.g. for site-to-site connections), this option is required to enable SELinux support in general.

Behavior

On systems with SELinux supported and enabled, it’s expected that the label configured in swanctl.conf is a generic context such as system_u:object_r:ipsec_spd_t:s0. When traffic hits a trap policy with such a context and matches it via association:polmatch, the kernel generates an acquire with the specific context for which a CHILD_SAs with matching label is negotiated with the peer. Since traffic in either direction usually requires different labels, the peer will probably create another CHILD_SA. Traffic will then flow through one IPsec SA of each CHILD_SA, the other SAs will remain unused.

In situations where trap policies can’t be installed from the start (by including trap in start_action), the selinux plugin dynamically installs trap policies with the configured label once an IKE_SA is established (possibly childless if the initiator had no specific label available). It does this for each child config that has a label configured and uses selinux as label mode. The trap policies are automatically updated in case of MOBIKE updates and removed once the IKE_SA is terminated.