[Open-scap] RHEL 7 GRUB2 boot password

Dan White d_e_white at icloud.com
Tue Jan 23 12:29:01 UTC 2018


Scanning some RHEL 7 VM's with the latest/greatest, I am getting a finding against the Boot Loader Password.



I set it according to this RHEL 7 System Administrator's Guide page and this Red Hat Solutions page, but the test fails.



Details from the report:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rule ID: xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_bootloader_password



Result: fail



Time:  2018-01-22T14:52:15



Severity:  high



Identifiers and References:
   Identifiers: CCE-27309-4
   References: IA-2(1), IA-5(e), AC-3, 213, SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048, RHEL-07-010480, 1.5.3, 3.4.5



Description :
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings.
To do so, select a superuser account and password and add them into the /etc/grub.d/01_users configuration file.
Since plaintext passwords are a security risk, generate a hash for the pasword by running the following command:



          $ grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2



When prompted, enter the password that was selected and insert the returned password hash into the /etc/grub.d/01_users configuration file immediately after the superuser account. (Use the output from grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2 as the value of password-hash):



          password_pbkdf2 superusers-account password-hash



NOTE: It is recommended not to use common administrator account names like root, admin, or administrator for the grub2 superuser account.

To meet FISMA Moderate, the bootloader superuser account and password MUST differ from the root account and password. Once the superuser account and password have been added, update the grub.cfg file by running:

          grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

NOTE: Do NOT manually add the superuser account and password to the grub.cfg file as the grub2-mkconfig command overwrites this file.

Rationale
Password protection on the boot loader configuration ensures users with physical access cannot trivially alter important bootloader settings. These include which kernel to use, and whether to enter single-user mode. For more information on how to configure the grub2 superuser account and password, please refer to

https://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/System_Administrators_Guide/sec-GRUB_2_Password_Protection.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


The link from the.Rationale returns a "404", and there is no mention in the current RHEL 7 System Administrator's Guide about tinkering with the /etc/grub.d/01_users configuration file other than to say it was necessary in versions prior to RHEL 7.2



Does the check need to be updated or do I need to do something other than stated in the Red Hat Documentation ?

And y'all have a typo :) that I highlighted in red on the third line of the description.



Dan White | d_e_white at icloud.com
------------------------------------------------
“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”  (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes)
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