Overview of Planning

Allow time to complete the label_encodings(4) file before installing the system.

Be prepared to spend time on the planning process.

Building the encodings for a site and making it correct both syntactically and semantically is a manual, time-consuming process.

Know your site's security policy.

Many Trusted Solaris installations already have a security policy developed according to government methods. Commercial businesses, even though they may not have much experience in planning labeled security, can start by examining their goals for information protection and use those goals to make some common-sense decisions about how to use labels. If the company has developed legal requirements for labeling printed information and email, those guidelines are a good place to start. For an example of how one commercial company developed a simple security policy based on its legal department's information labeling requirements, see Chapter 5, Example: Planning an Organization's Labels. For more about setting up your site's security policy, see Appendix A, "Site Security Policy" in Trusted Solaris Installation and Configuration.

Learn about the U. S. government label encodings file whose syntax and rules are used in the default Trusted Solaris installed version.

See the Compartmented Mode Workstation Labeling: Encodings Format: Defense Intelligence Agency document [DDS-2600-6216-93].

Plan to finalize your encodings before installation.

Changing the label_encodings(4) on a running system is risky. See "Changing the label_encodings File After System Start Up" of Chapter 2, Creating or Modifying the Encodings File.