Re: Emacs and SELinux contexts

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 08:39, Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have noticed something with emacs on GNU/Linux systems. When you edit
> something with Emacs, the SELinux  context of the file doesn't stay
> preserved. This could be an issue when you edit configuration or policy
> files as root. A system setting file usually has a context like this,

The etc/NEWS currently on the Emacs repository has this:

  ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
  This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.

  *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
  optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
  optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
  context in their return values.

  *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
  get and set the SELinux context of a file.

  *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and
set-file-selinux-context
  for remote machines which support SELinux.

so (some) SELinux support will be included on 24.1. Unfortunately,
that will likely be many months from now.

If you need that support now you can try building Emacs directly from
the current development sources.

    Juanma