AA-LOAD(8)

💖 AA-LOAD(8) — the AppArmor one 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to aa-load, part of the AppArmor manual pages (section 8, so you know it's sysadmin hours 👑). She's the girl who loads your precompiled AppArmor policy out of whatever cache spot you point her at. No compiling, no waiting, just vibes and security 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

aa-load — load precompiled AppArmor policy from cache location(s) 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

aa-load [options] (cache file|cache dir|cache base dir)+

like… options first, then one or more cache things. one or more!! the + is not playing around 💅

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🫶 DESCRIPTION 🫶

aa-load loads precompiled AppArmor policy from the specified locations. that's it, that's the whole job. you hand her a cache file, a cache dir, or a cache base dir — she scoops the precompiled policy out of there and gets it into the kernel. iconic behavior honestly ✨

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🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

aa-load accepts the following arguments:

• -f, --force — forces aa-load to load a policy even if its abi does not match the kernel abi. mismatched abi? she said "not today, bestie" and loads it anyway 🔥 (yes this is the spicy one, use it on purpose please)
• -d, --debug — displays debug messages. when something's giving weird, this is your girl 💀
• -v, --verbose — displays progress and error messages. so you can literally watch her cook 🍓
• -n, --dry-run — does not actually load the specified policy/policies into the kernel. pretend mode. rehearsal. dress rehearsal only, no policy goes in 🙈
• -h, --help — displays a brief usage guide. when in doubt, ask her, she'll tell you 🎀

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

upon exiting, aa-load returns 0 upon success and 1 upon an error loading the precompiled policy.

so: zero = slay, one = something went wrong loading that precompiled policy 😭 check your exit codes fr fr

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💀 BUGS 💀

if you find any bugs, please report them at:

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

not me gatekeeping bugs — tell the maintainers, they wanna know 🫶

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• apparmor(7)
• apparmor.d(5)
• apparmor_parser(8)
• <https://wiki.apparmor.net>

go read those, iykyk 🧚

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 💜 this one's from AppArmor 6.0.0~alpha1, dated 2026-10-05 — so go forth, load that precompiled policy, and stay safe out there ✨💖🎀