v1.16.11: selinux is an unconditional dependency, breaking source builds on distros that don't package libselinux

Note: Used a bit of AI to help with the issue. Glad to respond if you need more info.

Building bootc from source with make bin install-all regressed in v1.16.11 on distributions that do not ship libselinux development headers. v1.16.10 builds fine.

Cause

v1.16.11 added selinux to the workspace and consumes it unconditionally:

Cargo.toml:76 ([workspace.dependencies]) — selinux = "=0.5.0". Not present in v1.16.10.
crates/lib/Cargo.toml:54 — selinux = { workspace = true }, with no optional = true and no feature gate.

So every build of crates/lib now requires libselinux at link time, whether or not the target system has SELinux.

Failure

error: failed to run custom build command for `selinux-sys v0.6.15`

  selinux-sys: Failed to find 'selinux/selinux.h'. Please make sure the C header
  files of libselinux are installed and accessible: Kind(NotFound)

make: *** [Makefile:44: manpages] Error 1

It surfaces in the manpages target because that is the first thing to build the lib, but make bin fails the same way.

Why this is hard to work around downstream

Arch Linux packages neither libselinux nor libsepol in its official repositories, so there is no package to install:

$ curl -s 'https://archlinux.org/packages/search/json/?name=libselinux' | jq .count
0
$ curl -s 'https://archlinux.org/packages/search/json/?name=libsepol' | jq .count
0

That leaves adding a third-party repository, or building both libraries from source, purely to satisfy a link-time dependency on a system where SELinux is never enabled.

Worth noting this arrived in a patch release, so it reached anyone auto-updating within the 1.16 range.

Suggested fix

Gate it behind a cargo feature. crates/lib already uses this pattern for install-to-disk, rhsm and docgen:

# crates/lib/Cargo.toml
selinux = { workspace = true, optional = true }

[features]
default = ["install-to-disk", "selinux"]
selinux = ["dep:selinux"]

That keeps current behaviour for everyone by default and lets non-SELinux distros opt out. If the SELinux call sites are not easily made conditional, even a documented statement that libselinux is now a hard build requirement would help downstreams decide what to do.

Environment

bootc v1.16.11, built from source in an archlinux:latest container, rust from the Arch repositories. Context is an Arch-based bootc image; happy to test a patch.

docs: link the upstream bootc selinux issue from the blocked-update note

docs: record why a red Renovate PR is the hold, and what bootc is blo…

Yes sorry, we can make selinux a build-time option.

Yes sorry, we can make selinux a build-time option.

No prob. I'm probably one of a grand total of 10 people using bootc on arch LOL (just as an experiment really, but it works!)

Thank you!

Yes sorry, we can make selinux a build-time option.

No prob. I'm probably one of a grand total of 10 people using bootc on arch LOL (just as an experiment really, but it works!)

Thank you!

ironically, yesterday I decided to try arch and bootc

I had DeepSeek write a patch for now

diff --git i/crates/lib/Cargo.toml w/crates/lib/Cargo.toml
index 87ed118..6b1a317 100644
--- i/crates/lib/Cargo.toml
+++ w/crates/lib/Cargo.toml
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ regex = { workspace = true }
 rustix = { workspace = true }
 serde = { workspace = true, features = ["derive"] }
 serde_json = { workspace = true }
-selinux = { workspace = true }
+selinux = { workspace = true, optional = true }
 tempfile = { workspace = true }
 thiserror = { workspace = true }
 tokio = { workspace = true, features = ["io-std", "time", "process", "rt", "net"] }
@@ -90,6 +90,8 @@ install-to-disk = []
 # This featuares enables `bootc internals publish-rhsm-facts` to integrate with
 # Red Hat Subscription Manager
 rhsm = []
+# Make SELinux support optional; disable on distros without libselinux (e.g. Arch).
+selinux = ["dep:selinux"]
 # Implementation detail of man page generation.
 docgen = ["clap_mangen"]

diff --git i/crates/lib/src/lsm.rs w/crates/lib/src/lsm.rs
index 4d629b2..6670d79 100644
--- i/crates/lib/src/lsm.rs
+++ w/crates/lib/src/lsm.rs
@@ -25,9 +25,11 @@ const SELINUXFS: &str = "/sys/fs/selinux";
 /// The SELinux xattr
 const SELINUX_XATTR: &[u8] = b"security.selinux\0";
 /// The kernel initial SID used for objects without a label.
+#[cfg(feature = "selinux")]
 const SELINUX_INITIAL_SID_UNLABELED: &str = "unlabeled";
 const SELF_CURRENT: &str = "/proc/self/attr/current";

+#[cfg(feature = "selinux")]
 fn unlabeled_type() -> Result<CString> {
     let context =
         selinux::SecurityContext::of_initial_kernel_context(SELINUX_INITIAL_SID_UNLABELED, true)
@@ -35,6 +37,11 @@ fn unlabeled_type() -> Result<CString> {
     context_type(context.as_bytes())
 }

+#[cfg(not(feature = "selinux"))]
+fn unlabeled_type() -> Result<CString> {
+    anyhow::bail!("SELinux support is not compiled in")
+}
+
 #[context("Querying selinux availability")]
 pub(crate) fn selinux_enabled() -> Result<bool> {
     Path::new("/proc/1/root/sys/fs/selinux/enforce")
@@ -267,6 +274,7 @@ pub(crate) enum SELinuxLabelState {
     Labeled,
 }

+#[cfg(feature = "selinux")]
 fn context_type(context: &[u8]) -> Result<CString> {
     // security.selinux xattrs may include a trailing NUL terminator.
     let context = context.strip_suffix(b"\0").unwrap_or(context);
@@ -280,6 +288,11 @@ fn context_type(context: &[u8]) -> Result<CString> {
         .context("Reading SELinux context type")
 }

+#[cfg(not(feature = "selinux"))]
+fn context_type(_context: &[u8]) -> Result<CString> {
+    anyhow::bail!("SELinux support is not compiled in")
+}
+
 /// Query the SELinux labeling for a particular path
 pub(crate) fn has_security_selinux(root: &Dir, path: &Utf8Path) -> Result<SELinuxLabelState> {
     let unlabeled_type = unlabeled_type()?;
@@ -619,6 +632,7 @@ mod tests {
         assert!(xattrs_have_selinux(&Variant::from(found)));
     }

+    #[cfg(feature = "selinux")]
     #[test]
     fn test_context_type() {
         let cases: &[(&[u8], Option<&str>)] = &[

docs: record the upstream tracker for the bootc hold (#172)

This intersects with pending PR #2290 - if we make the feature off by default, it will need changes for the OSes that do use selinux.

For this reason for now I would like to conservatively default it to on, i.e. disabling it would require --no-default-features.

This intersects with pending PR #2290 - if we make the feature off by default, it will need changes for the OSes that do use selinux.

For this reason for now I would like to conservatively default it to on, i.e. disabling it would require --no-default-features.

Sounds reasonable. Wouldn't want to break my other fedora atomic systems I run.

Containerfile: pin bootc to v1.16.10 (selinux regression)

docs: refresh the bootc hold for v1.16.12, and fix its check command (#…

lib: Make SELinux support an optional default feature

fix(image): pin libselinux by tag and commit, tracked by Renovate

lib: Make SELinux support an optional default feature

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v1.16.11: selinux is an unconditional dependency, breaking source builds on distros that don't package libselinux #2431

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Environment

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v1.16.11: selinux is an unconditional dependency, breaking source builds on distros that don't package libselinux #2431

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Cause

Failure

Why this is hard to work around downstream

Suggested fix

Environment

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cgwalters commented on Sep 3, 2026

Danathar commented on Sep 4, 2026

smiggiddy commented on Sep 4, 2026

cgwalters commented on Sep 4, 2026

Danathar commented on Sep 4, 2026

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