Label Translation

Label translation occurs whenever programs manipulate labels. Labels are translated to and from the character-coded strings to the binary representation. For example, when a program such as getlabel(1) gets the label of a file, before the label can display to the user, the binary representation of the label must be translated into human-readable form. And when the setlabel(1) program sets a label specified on the command line, the character-coded string that makes up the label's name must be translated to the label's internal representation. The Trusted Solaris system permits label translations only if the calling process's label dominates the label to be translated. If a process attempts to translate a label that the process' SL does not dominate, the translation is disallowed. The sys_trans_label privilege overrides this restriction.

So, for example, when a program has the sys_trans_label privilege in its effective privilege set, the program can translate labels that dominate its process label.