AppArmor

AppArmor (Application Armor, on German about application ( program ) armor ) is a free security software for Linux, individually specific rights can be assigned or removed using the programs. It is an extension for Linux that implements Mandatory Access Control (MAC).

Operation

The software used, such as SELinux, the Linux Security Modules interface. It runs as a kernel module and directly controls the access rights of the individual processes at the highest system level. This building protection applications against unknown security holes, so-called zero-day exploits are to be protected. What needs to access a program to work normally, determine profiles with individual security policies. For standard software used on a GNU / Linux system as the print server CUPS canned profiles are included. Users and system administrators can create custom profiles for applications. Another possibility is the use of adaptive filtering while a program is in normal operation.

History

AppArmor was initially developed by Immunix. In 2005 there was a takeover by Novell, where the software was further developed and expanded. In October 2007, however, Novell released the programmers working on it and separated from the development of AppArmor. The dismissed developers were planning to continue the project under the new company to be established Mercenary Linux. Several attempts to take over AppArmor in the Linux kernel failed, due to concerns that files will be recognized by the file name and not by their attributes such as SELinux. Since 2009 Canonical increasingly working to AppArmor. With Linux 2.6.36, it was part of the kernel.

Currently AppArmor is used in the distributions openSUSE and Ubuntu. With version 2010.0 Mandriva switched to Tomoyo.