How To Disable SELinux on CentOS 7

SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) is a Linux kernel security module provides enhanced security for Linux systems. SELinux provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies. This specifies how the processes communicate with each other and interact with the files.

SELinux Modes:

SELinux has three modes to run. By default, SELinux runs in Enforcing mode on CentOS 7

• Enforcing – SELinux security policy is enforced.
• Permissive – SELinux allows access but prints warnings on rules voilation.
• Disabled – No SELinux policy is loaded.

Check SELinux Status

You can quicky view the current status of SELinux using the getenforce command.

getenforce

Enforcing

For the detailed status of SELinux use sestatus command.

sestatus

SELinux status:                 enabled
SELinuxfs mount:                /sys/fs/selinux
SELinux root directory:         /etc/selinux
Loaded policy name:             targeted
Current mode:                   enforcing
Mode from config file:          enforcing
Policy MLS status:              enabled
Policy deny_unknown status:     allowed
Max kernel policy version:      31

Disable SELinux on CentOS

You can set SELinux to permissive mode with the following command.

sudo setenforce 0

But the above changes will be reverted after the system reboot. To disable SELinux completely edit the configuration file

sudo vim /etc/sysconfig/selinux

and set SELINUX value to disabled

SELINUX=disabled

Save the configuration file and reboot your server

sudo reboot

After the restart, again check the SELinux status, This will show you the SELinux status is disabled.

getenforce

Disabled