How do I turn SELinux off in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • SELinux

Issue

  • How do you disable SELinux in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Resolution

WARNING

  • Red Hat Global Support Services does not recommend disabling SELinux.
  • SELinuxshould only be disabled in circumstances where your regulatory framework accepts that a class of security reporting and enforcement will be missing.
  • Files created with SELinux disabled will not have the appropriate labels to function correctly if SELinux is enabled in the future.
  • You will need to perform a file system relabeling if you re-enable SELinux. This is a time consuming operation.

For troubleshooting SELinux issues, you can temporarily change SELinux to permissive mode instead.

  • The SELinux policies will remain loaded.
  • Access attempts that violate the policies will still be logged but will not be denied.

Proceed with caution when running any of these commands in a production environment.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

  1. Install the grubby package if it's not already installed.

    $ sudo dnf install grubby

  2. Configure the boot loader to add selinux=0 to the kernel command line.

    $ sudo grubby --update-kernel ALL --args selinux=0

  3. Reboot the system.

    $ sudo reboot

    To re-enable SELinux run the following command:

    $ sudo grubby --update-kernel ALL --remove-args selinux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 7, and 6

There are two options available:

Method 1:

  1. Edit the /etc/selinux/config file and change SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=disabled.

  2. Reboot the system.

    $ sudo reboot

Method 2:

  1. Install the grubby package if it's not already installed.

    $ sudo yum install grubby

  2. Configure the boot loader to add selinux=0 to the kernel command line.

    $ sudo grubby --update-kernel ALL --args selinux=0

  3. Reboot the system.

    $ sudo reboot

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 4

There are two options available:

Method 1:

  1. Edit the /etc/selinux/config file and change SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=disabled.

  2. Reboot the system.

    $ sudo reboot

Method 2:

  1. Edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file and add selinux=0 to the end of the kernel line.

    Here is an example:

    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-398.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 selinux=0

  2. Reboot the system.

        $ sudo reboot

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