<4> post_create: setxatter failed

[Stephen Smalley]

On Sat, 2005-05-21 at 12:58 -0600, John P Poet wrote:
> I have been happily running Fedora Core 2 for a year.
> 
> I just tried to install Fedora Core 4T3, but it fails with:
> -------------------------------------
> There was an error installing cracklib-dicts-2.8.2-1.  This can
> indicate media failure, lack of disk space, and/or hardware problems. 
> This is a fatal error and your install will be aborted.
> -------------------------------------
> 
> If I switch over to F3, I see:
> -------------------------------------
> Setting file_context_path to /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/file_contexts
> -------------------------------------
> 
> F4 shows:
> -------------------------------------
>   <6>SELinux: initialized (dev hda3, type xfs), uses xattr
>   <4>post_create: setxatter failed, rc=1 (dev=hda7 ino=16449)
> -------------------------------------
> 
> My partion layout is:
> 
> hda1: /boot (ext3)
> hda2: swap
> hda3: /home (xfs)
> hda4: extended
>   hda5: / (Fedora core 2) (ext3)
>   hda6: / (alternate root) (jfs)
>   hda7: / (Fedora core 4T3) (jfs)
> 
> I booted off the DVD with "linux jfs", so it would allow me to format
> the root partion with jfs.
> I told it not to install SELinux.
> 
> I did test the media, and it is fine.  Pretty sure my hardware is
> okay, since Fedora Core 2 is quite happy running on it.
> 
> Any other information I can provide to help track this problem down?

The errno displayed by post_create was EPERM.  Looking at the jfs code,
it appears that they return EPERM from can_set_xattr() if the file is a
symlink.  SELinux attempts to label all files, including symlinks.
Please report to the jfs maintainers, as it is a bug in their code.

-- 
Stephen Smalley
National Security Agency