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49.5.4. Assigning Categories to Users

Now that the required categories have been added to the system, you can start assigning them to SELinux users and files. To further develop the example above, assume that James is in the Marketing department, Daniel is in the Finance and Payroll departments, and Olga is in the Personnel department. Each of these users has already been assigned an SELinux login.
Use the chcat command to assign MCS categories to SELinux logins: 
~]# chcat -l -- +Marketing james
~]# chcat -l -- +Finance,+Payroll daniel
~]# chcat -l -- +Personnel olga
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You can also use the chcat command with additional command-line arguments to list the categories that are assigned to users: 
~]# chcat -L -l daniel james olga
daniel: Finance,Payroll
james: Marketing
olga: Personnel
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You can add further Linux users, assign them to SELinux user identities and then assign categories to them as required. For example, if the company director also requires a user account with access to all categories, follow the same procedure as above: 
# Create a user account for the company director (Karl)
~]# useradd karl
~]# passwd karl
Changing password for user karl.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

# Assign the user account to an SELinux login
~]# semanage login -a karl

# Assign all the MCS categories to the new login
~]# chcat -l -- +Marketing,+Finance,+Payroll,+Personnel karl
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Use the chcat command to verify the addition of the new user: 
~]# chcat -L -l daniel james olga karl
daniel: Finance,Payroll
james: Marketing
olga: Personnel
karl: Marketing,Finance,Payroll,Personnel
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Note

MCS category access is assigned during login. Consequently, a user does not have access to newly-assigned categories until they log in again. Similarly, if access to a category is revoked, this is only apparent to the user after the next login.
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