Understanding the Trusted Solaris Environment

Installation and configuration of the Trusted Solaris environment involves more than loading executable files, entering your site's data, and setting configuration variables. It requires considerable background. Trusted Solaris software provides a unique environment based on the following concepts:

• Superuser has been eliminated. No one can log in as or use su to become root.

• Capabilities formerly assigned to superuser are available to discrete administrative roles to be assigned to a limited number of users.

• Users are limited to those applications necessary for performing their jobs.

• In addition to UNIX permissions, access to data is controlled by special security tags called sensitivity labels which are assigned to users and objects (such as data files and directories).

• The ability to override security policy can be assigned to specific users and applications.

To familiarize yourself with the Trusted Solaris environment, you should at a minimum read the Trusted Solaris User's Guide and Trusted Solaris Administration Overview. You should also be familiar with the rest of the documentation set, which is described in the Trusted Solaris 8 4/01 Documentation Roadmap.