Temporary disable or modify SELinux on Android

Question

I'm the developer on a root-app for Android.

Sadly now on some devices/ROMs there is SELinux in enforce-mode and prevents some actions of my app.

Because this is a root-app, the users are granting me root-access!

Now, SELinux is blocking some of my actions and I need to find a solution for this.

I tried to temporary disable SELinux by

setenforce permissive -> no failure, but getenforce still returns "Enforcing" echo 0 > /sys/fs/selinux/enforce -> no failure, but getenforce still returns "Enforcing" 

I play with the idea to edit the sepolicy-file at runtime to allow the blocked commands and trigger a reload of it, but I'm neither sure if & how this could work, nor isn't it a good idea.

Who has some more tips or resources for me?

Answer 1

You can use supolicy from the SuperSU app, see the link for a detailed description when and how it may be called.

In short:

• Find out why something is blocked by SELinux by checking the audit messages, e.g. dmesg | grep "audit"
• Create an allow ... rule that allows the blocked operation. They are similar (identical?) to 'allow' rules in SELinux *.te files.
• Run supolicy --live "allow ..." in a root shell and check if the operation now succeeds. If not, extend your 'allow' rule(s). You can specify multiple 'allow' rules in a single supolicy call.

Note that supolicy is an expensive operation, so be sure to call it only once.

If you don't want to depend on Chainfire's SuperSU you may try sepolicy-inject. I did not test that myself.

Answer 2

I have been trying to disable SELinux on Android 4.3 for a while now and this is what i came up with.

On Samsung S4 Android 4.3, setenforce 0 will change to Permissive mode.

On Samsung Note 3 Android 4.3, setenforce 0 will NOT change SELinux status.

I have tried Nexus 4 Android 4.3, however by default it is Permissive mode