Maintain Security Context When Managing Files

• When you copy a file to a new location, it inherits the security context of the directory.
• If you copy a file to /home, the type will be user_home_der_T
• If you want to keep the original security context of a file.
  • Need to apply additional options to the commands.
    • cp -a
      • -a is for archive and preserves permissions, access controls lists, extended attributes and SELinux security context.
      • mv command preserves attributes by default.
      • When you want to backup a file using tar, you need to pass the --selinux option, which preserves the security context.
      • To copy files from one host to another, whilst preserving the security context:
        • rsync -a X
    • The safer option though is to cp or mv the commands normally and then restore their context with restorecon