- I tried setting SELINUX to PERMISSIVE - the apps still couldn't use
network.
So what evidence do you have that the problem is caused by SELinux at all?
- The apps are blocked silently - no info in syslog, regardless of SELINUX
mode.
It sounds like SElinux is not the problem.
Permissive mode should not cause any SELinux-related failures unless your applications are directly integrated with SELinux (in which case they should check if selinux is enabled manually).
Have you tried if the problem occurs with selinux=disabled? Beware that you might need to relabel the filesystem afterwards if you try that.