Quick Tip 🔥 : Database connection on server with SELinux

I recently had to migrate a working application to a RHEL7 server with SELinux enabled. Everything seemed to be okay but it just wouldn't connect to the remote database.

My first instinct was to troubleshoot the database server but I didn't have any problems connecting from a desktop client or from the terminal. After googling around for a while, it turned out that SELinux was the culprit. The easy (but inappropriate) solution was to disable it:

sudo setenforce 0

However, after a bit more research I learnt that there is a specific property that needed to be enabled:

sudo setsebool httpd_can_network_connect_db 1

That was it. Until I rebooted the server and the above reverted to off again. The final solution was:

sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db 1

The -P flag makes the change permanent. Problem solved.

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