Here is the quick how-to for enabling and disabling SELinux on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server temporarily and permanently.
There are 3 modes available with the SELinux-
Enforcing – SELinux policy is enforced and access is denied based on the SELinux policy rules.
Permissive – SELinux policy is not enforced. Access is is not denied, but what would have been denied if it were enforced will be logged.
Disabled – SELinux is disabled completely. only DAC rules are used.
To permanently disable SELinux on the system, update ‘SELINUX=disabled’ in /etc/selinux/config file and reboot the system for the change to take effect
To change between the modes temporarily during run time, use the /usr/sbin/setenforce command with the appropriate mode
/usr/sbin/setenforce 1 will set the mode to Enforced
/usr/sbin/setenforce 0 will set the mode to Permissive
/usr/sbin/getenforce to display the current mode
Refer RHEL 6 SELinux guide for more detailed information