Daemons writing into HOME_DIR

[Stefan Schulze Frielinghaus <ml@stefansf.de>]

Hi all,

In short I'm wondering what the refpolicy way is to let a daemon write into
HOME_DIR and how those files---especially the SELinux user part---should be
labeled?

Currently I have a daemon (systemd service) running under context

  system_u:system_r:foobar_t:s0

and the policy contains

  init_daemon_domain(foobar_t, foobar_exec_t)

The daemon reads and writes files under HOME_DIR/foobar which are labeled as
foobar_rw_t and the policy has the following file context entry:

  HOME_DIR/foobar(/.*)? gen_context(system_u:object_r:foobar_rw_t,s0)

However, newly created files still seem to have a wrong user according to
restorecon (the daemon runs under Linux user marge which is assigned to SELinux
user user_u):

  $ restorecon -FRvn /home/marge/foobar
  Would relabel /home/marge/foobar/baz from system_u:object_r:foobar_rw_t:s0 to user_u:object_r:foobar_rw_t:s0

It looks like as if user_u wins over system_u for files under HOME_DIR.  This
does not have any effect on the functionality of the daemon, however, it still
feels wrong to me.  So I'm wondering how to fix this and thought about:

1) Can/Should a daemon run under a different SELinux user than system_u?

2) Another option, which I think is worse, would be to the change the SELinux
user from user_u to system_u for Linux user marge under which the daemon runs.

3) A third option would be to keep the users as is, i.e., let the daemon run
under system_u and let marge be assigned to user_u, but tweak the policy to keep
the file context labels under HOME_DIR with system_u.

Any thoughts?

(PS: the daemon cannot be reconfigured in order to write into a different
directory than HOME_DIR)

Cheers,
Stefan