Novell kicks off Linux app security project

Novell Tuesday unveiled AppArmor, a new open source project aimed at improving Linux application security.

The project is based on major pieces of Novell’s AppArmor application security framework, which the company is donating to the project, according to a Novell statement. The AppArmor framework uses security profiles to protect the Linux operating system and applications running on it from external or internal security threats. Each profile defines security policy for a particular application, in terms of the system resources it can access and its privileges within that application.

Novell acquired the AppArmor technology when it purchased security software vendor Immunix in May 2005. Immunix, based in Portland, Ore., developed much of a key component of Linux, the Linux Security Modules software, used in the Linux 2.6 kernel.

AppArmor currently is shipped with Suse Linux 10.0, Novell’s community Linux distribution, and the company’s Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 Service Pack 3. Novell has been active in creating a number of open source projects, including its OpenSuSE project launched in August. With OpenSuSE, Novell made a version of its Suse Linux operating system available to the open source community.

The AppArmor project is licensed under the GNU general public license and developers will have complete access to the most recent code and tools so they can try out the software and further develop the technology, Novell said.

More information on the AppArmor project is available here.