AA-COMPLAIN(8)

📦
version 6.0.0~alpha1 · 20 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 AA-COMPLAIN — okay bestie, let's talk about it

Soooo the manual name is aa-complain and it lives in section 8 of the AppArmor manual, which is exactly the energy we're bringing today. Buckle up 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

aa-complain — set an AppArmor security profile to complain mode.

Like, that's literally it. That's the whole job. 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

aa-complain <executable> [<executable> ...] [-d /path/to/profiles]
[--no-reload] [--force]

okay so you hand it one or more *executable*s, sprinkle some flags on top, and it does the thing. slay. ✨

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

  • -d --dir /path/to/profiles — tells it where to go look for the AppArmor security profile set. If you don't say anything, it just defaults to /etc/apparmor.d. no cap, that's the default. 💖
  • --no-reload — mean it when you say don't reload the profile after modifying it. that's it. it just... doesn't reload. 🫶
  • --force — pushes the profile into complain mode even if it's currently in unconfined mode. like, yes bestie, we're doing this anyway, don't argue with me. 💅

🔥 DESCRIPTION 🔥

okay so aa-complain is the tool you use to set the enforcement mode for one or more profiles over to complain mode. it's giving "soft launch but for security policy". 🌈

And what does complain mode even mean, you ask? It means the security policy is not enforced — instead, any access violations just get logged to the system log. so it's not blocking anything, it's just out here taking notes 📝 literally snitching on your processes in the most polite way possible.

🚨 okay bestie heads up though — 'deny' rules will be enforced even in complain mode. that part is NOT playing. deny is deny, periodt. 💀

😭 BUGS 😭

found a bug? not me being the one to tell you this but pleaseeee report it at:

<https://gitlab.com/apparmor/apparmor/-/issues>

they actually want to know, fr fr. 🙈

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

go off, read more:

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💜 this was AppArmor 6.0.0~alpha1, dated 2026-10-05, filed under AA-COMPLAIN(8) — go forth and complain (the technical kind, obviously) 🧚✨

📦 where this page comes from