mcs(8) — Linux manual page

mcs(8)                      mcs documentation                      mcs(8)

NAME         top

       mcs - Multi-Category System

DESCRIPTION         top

       MCS (Multiple Category System) allows users to label files on
       their system within administrator defined categories.  It then
       uses SELinux Mandatory Access Control to protect those files.
       MCS is a discretionary model to allow users to mark their data
       with additional tags that further restrict access.  The only
       mandatory aspect is authorizing users for categories by defining
       their clearance in policy.  However, MCS is similar to MLS and
       exercises the same code paths and share the same support
       infrastructure.  They just differ in their specific configuration.

       The /etc/selinux/{SELINUXTYPE}/setrans.conf configuration file
       translates the labels on disk to human readable form.
       Administrators can define any labels they want in this file.
       Certain applications like printing and auditing will use these
       labels to identify the files.  By setting a category on a file you
       will prevent other applications/services from having access to the
       files.

       Examples of file labels would be PatientRecord,
       CompanyConfidential etc.

SEE ALSO         top

       selinux(8), chcon(1)

FILES         top

       /etc/selinux/{SELINUXTYPE}/setrans.conf

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the selinux (Security-Enhanced Linux user-
       space libraries and tools) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki⟩.
       If you have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux/wiki/Contributing⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-08-04.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

dwalsh@redhat.com               8 Sep 2005                         mcs(8)

Pages that refer to this page: setrans.conf(5),  mcstransd(8)

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