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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-07-03 21:13:25 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-07-03 21:13:25 -0700
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Merge tag 'docs-4.13' of git://git.lwn.net/linux
Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet: "There has been a fair amount of activity in the docs tree this time around. Highlights include: - Conversion of a bunch of security documentation into RST - The conversion of the remaining DocBook templates by The Amazing Mauro Machine. We can now drop the entire DocBook build chain. - The usual collection of fixes and minor updates" * tag 'docs-4.13' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (90 commits) scripts/kernel-doc: handle DECLARE_HASHTABLE Documentation: atomic_ops.txt is core-api/atomic_ops.rst Docs: clean up some DocBook loose ends Make the main documentation title less Geocities Docs: Use kernel-figure in vidioc-g-selection.rst Docs: fix table problems in ras.rst Docs: Fix breakage with Sphinx 1.5 and upper Docs: Include the Latex "ifthen" package doc/kokr/howto: Only send regression fixes after -rc1 docs-rst: fix broken links to dynamic-debug-howto in kernel-parameters doc: Document suitability of IBM Verse for kernel development Doc: fix a markup error in coding-style.rst docs: driver-api: i2c: remove some outdated information Documentation: DMA API: fix a typo in a function name Docs: Insert missing space to separate link from text doc/ko_KR/memory-barriers: Update control-dependencies example Documentation, kbuild: fix typo "minimun" -> "minimum" docs: Fix some formatting issues in request-key.rst doc: ReSTify keys-trusted-encrypted.txt doc: ReSTify keys-request-key.txt ...
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+===========================
+Linux Security Module Usage
+===========================
+
+The Linux Security Module (LSM) framework provides a mechanism for
+various security checks to be hooked by new kernel extensions. The name
+"module" is a bit of a misnomer since these extensions are not actually
+loadable kernel modules. Instead, they are selectable at build-time via
+CONFIG_DEFAULT_SECURITY and can be overridden at boot-time via the
+``"security=..."`` kernel command line argument, in the case where multiple
+LSMs were built into a given kernel.
+
+The primary users of the LSM interface are Mandatory Access Control
+(MAC) extensions which provide a comprehensive security policy. Examples
+include SELinux, Smack, Tomoyo, and AppArmor. In addition to the larger
+MAC extensions, other extensions can be built using the LSM to provide
+specific changes to system operation when these tweaks are not available
+in the core functionality of Linux itself.
+
+Without a specific LSM built into the kernel, the default LSM will be the
+Linux capabilities system. Most LSMs choose to extend the capabilities
+system, building their checks on top of the defined capability hooks.
+For more details on capabilities, see ``capabilities(7)`` in the Linux
+man-pages project.
+
+A list of the active security modules can be found by reading
+``/sys/kernel/security/lsm``. This is a comma separated list, and
+will always include the capability module. The list reflects the
+order in which checks are made. The capability module will always
+be first, followed by any "minor" modules (e.g. Yama) and then
+the one "major" module (e.g. SELinux) if there is one configured.
+
+.. toctree::
+ :maxdepth: 1
+
+ apparmor
+ LoadPin
+ SELinux
+ Smack
+ tomoyo
+ Yama