the labeling procedure

[Ivan Gyurdiev]

> When I run #make relabel, /home gets labeled as default_t.  However, when I
> run #/sbin/restorecon /home, /home gets labeled as home_root_t.  This
> confuses me, since according to the O'Reilly book both commands refer to
> /src/policy/file_contexts/file_contexts.  Where else might /sbin/restorecon
> be getting its information from?

Not sure, but I thought make relabel skipped /home entirely.

> Furthermore, I notice that /src/policy/file_contexts/file_contexts does not
> contain the string home_root_t.  I suppose that home_root_t comes from the
> homedir_template file during the Make process, but then why doesn't #make
> relabel correctly label /home?

That sounds like a bug, but I'm not seeing the same thing on rawhide.
Then again, I run strict policy.

home_root_t goes into file_contexts.homedirs 
(and that gets created from the template)

> I also notice that my context/files/file_contexts file is stale.  Doing
> #make relabel or #make reload doesn't update it. 

I think that was fixed in rawhide.
Try make install?

>  Does this file ever get
> referenced anyway, since all the relabeling utilities seem to use
> /src/policy/file_contexts/file_contexts instead? 

They do?
Nothing should be using that file, except 
things involved in installing the policy sources.

>  If it does get used, who
> uses it?  And how can I be sure it gets updated to match
> src/policy/file_contexts/file_contexts?

make load *should* be sufficient, but you
might be seeing a bug - try make install.

> Any help in demystifying the file labeling procedure is appreciated!

Hopefully others on this list can help you more, but basically,
everything should be using contexts/files/file_contexts, and
the file_contexts.homedirs. Nothing should be using the src file - 
that's strictly policy sources.