Tour: Looking at Files with the File Manager

Files are objects in data transactions in the Trusted Solaris environment and can only be accessed by applications whose sensitivity labels dominate the files' sensitivity labels. Files can only be viewed from workspaces or by File Managers that have the same sensitivity label.

Click the File Manager icon to launch it.

Figure 3-10 Using the File Manager

The File Manager is an application and is launched with the same labels as the current workspace. It provides access to only those files that are at its sensitivity label.

As discussed in "Storing Files in Separate Directories by Sensitivity Labels", the Trusted Solaris environment provides single-level directories (SLDs) and a multilevel directories (MLDs) to separate files and directories at different sensitivity labels. Whenever you attempt to view or access files within a multilevel directory, you are effectively limited to the contents of the single-level directory at the current sensitivity label. The following figure shows the contents of the home directory, which is textfile.1 at this stage of the example.

Figure 3-11 Visible and Hidden Files at CONFIDENTIAL Sensitivity Label