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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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+=====================
+NetLabel Introduction
+=====================
+
+Paul Moore, paul.moore@hp.com
+
+August 2, 2006
+
+Overview
+========
+
+NetLabel is a mechanism which can be used by kernel security modules to attach
+security attributes to outgoing network packets generated from user space
+applications and read security attributes from incoming network packets. It
+is composed of three main components, the protocol engines, the communication
+layer, and the kernel security module API.
+
+Protocol Engines
+================
+
+The protocol engines are responsible for both applying and retrieving the
+network packet's security attributes. If any translation between the network
+security attributes and those on the host are required then the protocol
+engine will handle those tasks as well. Other kernel subsystems should
+refrain from calling the protocol engines directly, instead they should use
+the NetLabel kernel security module API described below.
+
+Detailed information about each NetLabel protocol engine can be found in this
+directory.
+
+Communication Layer
+===================
+
+The communication layer exists to allow NetLabel configuration and monitoring
+from user space. The NetLabel communication layer uses a message based
+protocol built on top of the Generic NETLINK transport mechanism. The exact
+formatting of these NetLabel messages as well as the Generic NETLINK family
+names can be found in the 'net/netlabel/' directory as comments in the
+header files as well as in 'include/net/netlabel.h'.
+
+Security Module API
+===================
+
+The purpose of the NetLabel security module API is to provide a protocol
+independent interface to the underlying NetLabel protocol engines. In addition
+to protocol independence, the security module API is designed to be completely
+LSM independent which should allow multiple LSMs to leverage the same code
+base.
+
+Detailed information about the NetLabel security module API can be found in the
+'include/net/netlabel.h' header file as well as the 'lsm_interface.txt' file
+found in this directory.