Red Hat Enterprise Linux-7-Security Guide-en-US
Red Hat Enterprise Linux-7-Security Guide-en-US
Security Guide
Mirek Jahoda
Red Hat Customer Content Services
[email protected]
Stephen Wadeley
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Robert Krátký
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Martin Prpič
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Ioanna Gkioka
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Tomáš Čapek
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Yoana Ruseva
Red Hat Customer Content Services
Miroslav Svoboda
Red Hat Customer Content Services
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Abstract
This book assists users and administrators in learning the processes and practices of securing
workstations and servers against local and remote intrusion, exploitation, and malicious activity.
Focused on Red Hat Enterprise Linux but detailing concepts and techniques valid for all Linux
systems, this guide details the planning and the tools involved in creating a secured computing
environment for the data center, workplace, and home. With proper administrative knowledge,
vigilance, and tools, systems running Linux can be both fully functional and secured from most
common intrusion and exploit methods.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 1.. .OVERVIEW
. . . . . . . . . . . .OF
. . . SECURITY
. . . . . . . . . . . .TOPICS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4. . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1. WHAT IS COMPUTER SECURITY? 4
1.2. SECURITY CONTROLS 5
1.3. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT 6
1.4. SECURITY THREATS 10
1.5. COMMON EXPLOITS AND ATTACKS 13
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 2.
. . SECURITY
. . . . . . . . . . . .TIPS
. . . . .FOR
. . . . .INSTALLATION
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
..............
2.1. SECURING BIOS 16
2.2. PARTITIONING THE DISK 16
2.3. INSTALLING THE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF PACKAGES REQUIRED 17
2.4. RESTRICTING NETWORK CONNECTIVITY DURING THE INSTALLATION PROCESS 17
2.5. POST-INSTALLATION PROCEDURES 18
2.6. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 18
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 3.
. . KEEPING
. . . . . . . . . . .YOUR
. . . . . . SYSTEM
. . . . . . . . . UP-TO-DATE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
..............
3.1. MAINTAINING INSTALLED SOFTWARE 19
3.2. USING THE RED HAT CUSTOMER PORTAL 23
3.3. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 24
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 4.
. . .HARDENING
. . . . . . . . . . . . .YOUR
. . . . . . .SYSTEM
. . . . . . . . .WITH
. . . . . .TOOLS
. . . . . . . .AND
. . . . . SERVICES
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
..............
4.1. DESKTOP SECURITY 25
4.2. CONTROLLING ROOT ACCESS 33
4.3. SECURING SERVICES 41
4.4. SECURING NETWORK ACCESS 63
4.5. SECURING DNS TRAFFIC WITH DNSSEC 71
4.6. SECURING VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORKS (VPNS) USING LIBRESWAN 80
4.7. USING OPENSSL 92
4.8. USING STUNNEL 97
4.9. ENCRYPTION 100
4.10. CONFIGURING AUTOMATED UNLOCKING OF ENCRYPTED VOLUMES USING POLICY-BASED
DECRYPTION 115
4.11. CHECKING INTEGRITY WITH AIDE 127
4.12. USING USBGUARD 128
4.13. HARDENING TLS CONFIGURATION 133
4.14. USING SHARED SYSTEM CERTIFICATES 140
4.15. USING MACSEC 142
4.16. REMOVING DATA SECURELY USING SCRUB 143
.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 5.
. . USING
. . . . . . . .FIREWALLS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145
...............
5.1. GETTING STARTED WITH FIREWALLD 145
5.2. INSTALLING THE FIREWALL-CONFIG GUI CONFIGURATION TOOL 148
5.3. VIEWING THE CURRENT STATUS AND SETTINGS OF FIREWALLD 148
5.4. STARTING FIREWALLD 151
5.5. STOPPING FIREWALLD 151
5.6. CONTROLLING TRAFFIC 151
5.7. WORKING WITH ZONES 155
5.8. USING ZONES TO MANAGE INCOMING TRAFFIC DEPENDING ON SOURCE 158
5.9. PORT FORWARDING 160
5.10. CONFIGURING IP ADDRESS MASQUERADING 162
5.11. MANAGING ICMP REQUESTS 162
5.12. SETTING AND CONTROLLING IP SETS USING FIREWALLD 165
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.CHAPTER
. . . . . . . . . . 6.
. . .SYSTEM
. . . . . . . . .AUDITING
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180
...............
Use Cases 180
6.1. AUDIT SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE 181
6.2. INSTALLING THE AUDIT PACKAGES 182
6.3. CONFIGURING THE AUDIT SERVICE 182
6.4. STARTING THE AUDIT SERVICE 183
6.5. DEFINING AUDIT RULES 184
6.6. UNDERSTANDING AUDIT LOG FILES 190
6.7. SEARCHING THE AUDIT LOG FILES 196
6.8. CREATING AUDIT REPORTS 196
6.9. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 197
. . . . . . . . . . . 7.
CHAPTER . . COMPLIANCE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AND
. . . . . .VULNERABILITY
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SCANNING
. . . . . . . . . . . . WITH
. . . . . . OPENSCAP
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199
...............
7.1. SECURITY COMPLIANCE IN RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 199
7.2. DEFINING COMPLIANCE POLICY 199
7.3. USING SCAP WORKBENCH 207
7.4. USING OSCAP 214
7.5. USING OPENSCAP WITH DOCKER 222
7.6. USING OPENSCAP WITH THE ATOMIC SCAN COMMAND 223
7.7. USING OPENSCAP WITH ANSIBLE 228
7.8. USING OPENSCAP WITH RED HAT SATELLITE 229
7.9. PRACTICAL EXAMPLES 230
7.10. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 231
. . . . . . . . . . . 8.
CHAPTER . . .FEDERAL
. . . . . . . . . .STANDARDS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .AND
. . . . .REGULATIONS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .232
...............
8.1. FEDERAL INFORMATION PROCESSING STANDARD (FIPS) 232
8.2. NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL SECURITY PROGRAM OPERATING MANUAL (NISPOM) 234
8.3. PAYMENT CARD INDUSTRY DATA SECURITY STANDARD (PCI DSS) 234
8.4. SECURITY TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE 234
.APPENDIX
. . . . . . . . . . .A.
. . ENCRYPTION
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . STANDARDS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
...............
A.1. SYNCHRONOUS ENCRYPTION 235
A.2. PUBLIC-KEY ENCRYPTION 235
. . . . . . . . . . . .B.
APPENDIX . . REVISION
. . . . . . . . . . . HISTORY
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
...............
2
Table of Contents
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Security Guide
Unfortunately, many organizations (as well as individual users) regard security as more of an
afterthought, a process that is overlooked in favor of increased power, productivity, convenience, ease
of use, and budgetary concerns. Proper security implementation is often enacted postmortem — after an
unauthorized intrusion has already occurred. Taking the correct measures prior to connecting a site to an
untrusted network, such as the Internet, is an effective means of thwarting many attempts at intrusion.
NOTE
This document makes several references to files in the /lib directory. When using 64-bit
systems, some of the files mentioned may instead be located in /lib64.
Integrity — Information should not be altered in ways that render it incomplete or incorrect.
Unauthorized users should be restricted from the ability to modify or destroy sensitive
information.
Availability — Information should be accessible to authorized users any time that it is needed.
Availability is a warranty that information can be obtained with an agreed-upon frequency and
timeliness. This is often measured in terms of percentages and agreed to formally in Service
Level Agreements (SLAs) used by network service providers and their enterprise clients.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
Physical
Technical
Administrative
These three broad categories define the main objectives of proper security implementation. Within
these controls are sub-categories that further detail the controls and how to implement them.
Security guards
Picture IDs
Biometrics (includes fingerprint, voice, face, iris, handwriting, and other automated methods
used to recognize individuals)
Encryption
Smart cards
Network authentication
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Security Guide
The expertise of the staff responsible for configuring, monitoring, and maintaining the
technologies.
The ability to patch and update services and kernels quickly and efficiently.
The ability of those responsible to keep constant vigilance over the network.
Given the dynamic state of data systems and technologies, securing corporate resources can be quite
complex. Due to this complexity, it is often difficult to find expert resources for all of your systems. While
it is possible to have personnel knowledgeable in many areas of information security at a high level, it is
difficult to retain staff who are experts in more than a few subject areas. This is mainly because each
subject area of information security requires constant attention and focus. Information security does not
stand still.
A vulnerability assessment is an internal audit of your network and system security; the results of which
indicate the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your network (as explained in Section 1.1.1,
“Standardizing Security”). Typically, vulnerability assessment starts with a reconnaissance phase, during
which important data regarding the target systems and resources is gathered. This phase leads to the
system readiness phase, whereby the target is essentially checked for all known vulnerabilities. The
readiness phase culminates in the reporting phase, where the findings are classified into categories of
high, medium, and low risk; and methods for improving the security (or mitigating the risk of
vulnerability) of the target are discussed
If you were to perform a vulnerability assessment of your home, you would likely check each door to your
home to see if they are closed and locked. You would also check every window, making sure that they
closed completely and latch correctly. This same concept applies to systems, networks, and electronic
data. Malicious users are the thieves and vandals of your data. Focus on their tools, mentality, and
motivations, and you can then react swiftly to their actions.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
When you perform an inside-looking-around vulnerability assessment, you are at an advantage since you
are internal and your status is elevated to trusted. This is the viewpoint you and your co-workers have
once logged on to your systems. You see print servers, file servers, databases, and other resources.
There are striking distinctions between the two types of vulnerability assessments. Being internal to your
company gives you more privileges than an outsider. In most organizations, security is configured to
keep intruders out. Very little is done to secure the internals of the organization (such as departmental
firewalls, user-level access controls, and authentication procedures for internal resources). Typically,
there are many more resources when looking around inside as most systems are internal to a company.
Once you are outside the company, your status is untrusted. The systems and resources available to you
externally are usually very limited.
Consider the difference between vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. Think of a vulnerability
assessment as the first step to a penetration test. The information gleaned from the assessment is used
for testing. Whereas the assessment is undertaken to check for holes and potential vulnerabilities, the
penetration testing actually attempts to exploit the findings.
Assessing network infrastructure is a dynamic process. Security, both information and physical, is
dynamic. Performing an assessment shows an overview, which can turn up false positives and false
negatives. A false positive is a result, where the tool finds vulnerabilities which in reality do not exist. A
false negative is when it omits actual vulnerabilities.
Security administrators are only as good as the tools they use and the knowledge they retain. Take any
of the assessment tools currently available, run them against your system, and it is almost a guarantee
that there are some false positives. Whether by program fault or user error, the result is the same. The
tool may find false positives, or, even worse, false negatives.
Now that the difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test is defined, take the
findings of the assessment and review them carefully before conducting a penetration test as part of
your new best practices approach.
WARNING
The following list examines some of the benefits to performing vulnerability assessments.
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Security Guide
What is the target? Are we looking at one server, or are we looking at our entire network and everything
within the network? Are we external or internal to the company? The answers to these questions are
important as they help determine not only which tools to select but also the manner in which they are
used.
Just as in any aspect of everyday life, there are many different tools that perform the same job. This
concept applies to performing vulnerability assessments as well. There are tools specific to operating
systems, applications, and even networks (based on the protocols used). Some tools are free; others are
not. Some tools are intuitive and easy to use, while others are cryptic and poorly documented but have
features that other tools do not.
Finding the right tools may be a daunting task and, in the end, experience counts. If possible, set up a
test lab and try out as many tools as you can, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each. Review the
README file or man page for the tools. Additionally, look to the Internet for more information, such as
articles, step-by-step guides, or even mailing lists specific to the tools.
The tools discussed below are just a small sampling of the available tools.
Nmap is a popular tool that can be used to determine the layout of a network. Nmap has been available
for many years and is probably the most often used tool when gathering information. An excellent
manual page is included that provides detailed descriptions of its options and usage. Administrators can
use Nmap on a network to find host systems and open ports on those systems.
Nmap is a competent first step in vulnerability assessment. You can map out all the hosts within your
network and even pass an option that allows Nmap to attempt to identify the operating system running
on a particular host. Nmap is a good foundation for establishing a policy of using secure services and
restricting unused services.
To install Nmap, run the yum install nmap command as the root user.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
Nmap can be run from a shell prompt by typing the nmap command followed by the host name or IP
address of the machine to scan:
nmap <hostname>
For example, to scan a machine with host name foo.example.com, type the following at a shell prompt:
The results of a basic scan (which could take up to a few minutes, depending on where the host is
located and other network conditions) look similar to the following:
Nmap tests the most common network communication ports for listening or waiting services. This
knowledge can be helpful to an administrator who wants to close unnecessary or unused services.
For more information about using Nmap, see the official homepage at the following URL:
http://www.insecure.org/
1.3.3.2. Nessus
Nessus is a full-service security scanner. The plug-in architecture of Nessus allows users to customize it
for their systems and networks. As with any scanner, Nessus is only as good as the signature database it
relies upon. Fortunately, Nessus is frequently updated and features full reporting, host scanning, and
real-time vulnerability searches. Remember that there could be false positives and false negatives, even
in a tool as powerful and as frequently updated as Nessus.
NOTE
The Nessus client and server software requires a subscription to use. It has been included
in this document as a reference to users who may be interested in using this popular
application.
For more information about Nessus, see the official website at the following URL:
http://www.nessus.org/
1.3.3.3. OpenVAS
OpenVAS (Open Vulnerability Assessment System ) is a set of tools and services that can be used to
scan for vulnerabilities and for a comprehensive vulnerability management. The OpenVAS framework
offers a number of web-based, desktop, and command line tools for controlling the various components
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Security Guide
of the solution. The core functionality of OpenVAS is provided by a security scanner, which makes use
of over 33 thousand daily-updated Network Vulnerability Tests (NVT). Unlike Nessus (see
Section 1.3.3.2, “Nessus”), OpenVAS does not require any subscription.
For more information about OpenVAS, see the official website at the following URL:
http://www.openvas.org/
1.3.3.4. Nikto
Nikto is an excellent common gateway interface (CGI) script scanner. Nikto not only checks for CGI
vulnerabilities but does so in an evasive manner, so as to elude intrusion-detection systems. It comes
with thorough documentation which should be carefully reviewed prior to running the program. If you
have web servers serving CGI scripts, Nikto can be an excellent resource for checking the security of
these servers.
http://cirt.net/nikto2
Insecure Architectures
A misconfigured network is a primary entry point for unauthorized users. Leaving a trust-based, open
local network vulnerable to the highly-insecure Internet is much like leaving a door ajar in a crime-ridden
neighborhood — nothing may happen for an arbitrary amount of time, but someone exploits the
opportunity eventually.
Broadcast Networks
System administrators often fail to realize the importance of networking hardware in their security
schemes. Simple hardware, such as hubs and routers, relies on the broadcast or non-switched principle;
that is, whenever a node transmits data across the network to a recipient node, the hub or router sends a
broadcast of the data packets until the recipient node receives and processes the data. This method is
the most vulnerable to address resolution protocol (ARP) or media access control ( MAC) address
spoofing by both outside intruders and unauthorized users on local hosts.
Centralized Servers
Another potential networking pitfall is the use of centralized computing. A common cost-cutting
measure for many businesses is to consolidate all services to a single powerful machine. This can be
convenient as it is easier to manage and costs considerably less than multiple-server configurations.
However, a centralized server introduces a single point of failure on the network. If the central server is
compromised, it may render the network completely useless or worse, prone to data manipulation or
theft. In these situations, a central server becomes an open door that allows access to the entire
network.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
A common occurrence among system administrators is to install the operating system without paying
attention to what programs are actually being installed. This can be problematic because unneeded
services may be installed, configured with the default settings, and possibly turned on. This can cause
unwanted services, such as Telnet, DHCP, or DNS, to run on a server or workstation without the
administrator realizing it, which in turn can cause unwanted traffic to the server or even a potential
pathway into the system for crackers. See Section 4.3, “Securing Services” for information on closing
ports and disabling unused services.
Unpatched Services
Most server applications that are included in a default installation are solid, thoroughly tested pieces of
software. Having been in use in production environments for many years, their code has been thoroughly
refined and many of the bugs have been found and fixed.
However, there is no such thing as perfect software and there is always room for further refinement.
Moreover, newer software is often not as rigorously tested as one might expect, because of its recent
arrival to production environments or because it may not be as popular as other server software.
Developers and system administrators often find exploitable bugs in server applications and publish the
information on bug tracking and security-related websites such as the Bugtraq mailing list
(http://www.securityfocus.com) or the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) website
(http://www.cert.org). Although these mechanisms are an effective way of alerting the community to
security vulnerabilities, it is up to system administrators to patch their systems promptly. This is
particularly true because crackers have access to these same vulnerability tracking services and will use
the information to crack unpatched systems whenever they can. Good system administration requires
vigilance, constant bug tracking, and proper system maintenance to ensure a more secure computing
environment.
See Chapter 3, Keeping Your System Up-to-Date for more information about keeping a system up-to-
date.
Inattentive Administration
Administrators who fail to patch their systems are one of the greatest threats to server security.
According to the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security Institute (SANS), the primary cause of computer
security vulnerability is "assigning untrained people to maintain security and providing neither the
training nor the time to make it possible to learn and do the job."[1] This applies as much to
inexperienced administrators as it does to overconfident or amotivated administrators.
Some administrators fail to patch their servers and workstations, while others fail to watch log messages
from the system kernel or network traffic. Another common error is when default passwords or keys to
services are left unchanged. For example, some databases have default administration passwords
because the database developers assume that the system administrator changes these passwords
immediately after installation. If a database administrator fails to change this password, even an
inexperienced cracker can use a widely-known default password to gain administrative privileges to the
database. These are only a few examples of how inattentive administration can lead to compromised
servers.
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are used over trusted networks; however, this assumption fails as soon as the service becomes available
over the Internet — which is itself inherently untrusted.
One category of insecure network services are those that require unencrypted usernames and
passwords for authentication. Telnet and FTP are two such services. If packet sniffing software is
monitoring traffic between the remote user and such a service usernames and passwords can be easily
intercepted.
Inherently, such services can also more easily fall prey to what the security industry terms the man-in-
the-middle attack. In this type of attack, a cracker redirects network traffic by tricking a cracked name
server on the network to point to his machine instead of the intended server. Once someone opens a
remote session to the server, the attacker's machine acts as an invisible conduit, sitting quietly between
the remote service and the unsuspecting user capturing information. In this way a cracker can gather
administrative passwords and raw data without the server or the user realizing it.
Another category of insecure services include network file systems and information services such as
NFS or NIS, which are developed explicitly for LAN usage but are, unfortunately, extended to include
WANs (for remote users). NFS does not, by default, have any authentication or security mechanisms
configured to prevent a cracker from mounting the NFS share and accessing anything contained therein.
NIS, as well, has vital information that must be known by every computer on a network, including
passwords and file permissions, within a plain text ASCII or DBM (ASCII-derived) database. A cracker
who gains access to this database can then access every user account on a network, including the
administrator's account.
By default, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is released with all such services turned off. However, since
administrators often find themselves forced to use these services, careful configuration is critical. See
Section 4.3, “Securing Services” for more information about setting up services in a safe manner.
Bad Passwords
Bad passwords are one of the easiest ways for an attacker to gain access to a system. For more on how
to avoid common pitfalls when creating a password, see Section 4.1.1, “Password Security”.
Even when using secure protocols, such as SSH, a remote user may be vulnerable to certain attacks if
they do not keep their client applications updated. For instance, v.1 SSH clients are vulnerable to an X-
forwarding attack from malicious SSH servers. Once connected to the server, the attacker can quietly
capture any keystrokes and mouse clicks made by the client over the network. This problem was fixed in
the v.2 SSH protocol, but it is up to the user to keep track of what applications have such vulnerabilities
and update them as necessary.
Section 4.1, “Desktop Security” discusses in more detail what steps administrators and home users
should take to limit the vulnerability of computer workstations.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
Null or Default Leaving administrative passwords blank Commonly associated with networking
Passwords or using a default password set by the hardware such as routers, firewalls, VPNs,
and network attached storage (NAS)
product vendor. This is most common in
appliances.
hardware such as routers and firewalls,
but some services that run on Linux can Common in many legacy operating
contain default administrator passwords systems, especially those that bundle
as well (though Red Hat services (such as UNIX and Windows.)
Enterprise Linux 7 does not ship with
Administrators sometimes create
them).
privileged user accounts in a rush and
leave the password null, creating a
perfect entry point for malicious users
who discover the account.
Default Shared Secure services sometimes package Most common in wireless access points
Keys default security keys for development or and preconfigured secure server
appliances.
evaluation testing purposes. If these keys
are left unchanged and are placed in a
production environment on the Internet,
all users with the same default keys have
access to that shared-key resource, and
any sensitive information that it contains.
IP Spoofing A remote machine acts as a node on your Spoofing is quite difficult as it involves
local network, finds vulnerabilities with the attacker predicting TCP/IP sequence
numbers to coordinate a connection to
your servers, and installs a backdoor
target systems, but several tools are
program or Trojan horse to gain control
available to assist crackers in performing
over your network resources. such a vulnerability.
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Eavesdropping Collecting data that passes between two This type of attack works mostly with plain
active nodes on a network by text transmission protocols such as
Telnet, FTP, and HTTP transfers.
eavesdropping on the connection
between the two nodes.
Remote attacker must have access to a
compromised system on a LAN in order
to perform such an attack; usually the
cracker has used an active attack (such as
IP spoofing or man-in-the-middle) to
compromise a system on the LAN.
Service An attacker finds a flaw or loophole in a HTTP-based services such as CGI are
Vulnerabilities service run over the Internet; through this vulnerable to remote command execution
and even interactive shell access. Even if
vulnerability, the attacker compromises
the HTTP service runs as a non-privileged
the entire system and any data that it may
user such as "nobody", information such
hold, and could possibly compromise as configuration files and network maps
other systems on the network. can be read, or the attacker can start a
denial of service attack which drains
system resources or renders it unavailable
to other users.
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CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW OF SECURITY TOPICS
Application Attackers find faults in desktop and Workstations and desktops are more
Vulnerabilities workstation applications (such as email prone to exploitation as workers do not
have the expertise or experience to
clients) and execute arbitrary code,
prevent or detect a compromise; it is
implant Trojan horses for future imperative to inform individuals of the
compromise, or crash systems. Further risks they are taking when they install
exploitation can occur if the compromised unauthorized software or open
workstation has administrative privileges unsolicited email attachments.
on the rest of the network.
Safeguards can be implemented such
that email client software does not
automatically open or execute
attachments. Additionally, the automatic
update of workstation software using Red
Hat Network; or other system
management services can alleviate the
burdens of multi-seat security
deployments.
Denial of Service Attacker or group of attackers coordinate The most reported DoS case in the US
(DoS) Attacks against an organization's network or occurred in 2000. Several highly-
trafficked commercial and government
server resources by sending unauthorized
sites were rendered unavailable by a
packets to the target host (either server,
coordinated ping flood attack using
router, or workstation). This forces the several compromised systems with high
resource to become unavailable to bandwidth connections acting as zombies,
legitimate users. or redirected broadcast nodes.
[1] http://www.sans.org/security-resources/mistakes.php
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Security Guide
For example, if a machine is used in a trade show and contains no sensitive information, then it may not
be critical to prevent such attacks. However, if an employee's laptop with private, unencrypted SSH keys
for the corporate network is left unattended at that same trade show, it could lead to a major security
breach with ramifications for the entire company.
If the workstation is located in a place where only authorized or trusted people have access, however,
then securing the BIOS or the boot loader may not be necessary.
The two primary reasons for password protecting the BIOS of a computer are [2] :
1. Preventing Changes to BIOS Settings — If an intruder has access to the BIOS, they can set it to
boot from a CD-ROM or a flash drive. This makes it possible for them to enter rescue mode or
single user mode, which in turn allows them to start arbitrary processes on the system or copy
sensitive data.
2. Preventing System Booting — Some BIOSes allow password protection of the boot process.
When activated, an attacker is forced to enter a password before the BIOS launches the boot
loader.
Because the methods for setting a BIOS password vary between computer manufacturers, consult the
computer's manual for specific instructions.
If you forget the BIOS password, it can either be reset with jumpers on the motherboard or by
disconnecting the CMOS battery. For this reason, it is good practice to lock the computer case if
possible. However, consult the manual for the computer or motherboard before attempting to
disconnect the CMOS battery.
Other systems and architectures use different programs to perform low-level tasks roughly equivalent
to those of the BIOS on x86 systems. For example, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)
shell.
For instructions on password protecting BIOS-like programs, see the manufacturer's instructions.
Red Hat recommends creating separate partitions for the /boot, /, /home, /tmp, and /var/tmp/
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CHAPTER 2. SECURITY TIPS FOR INSTALLATION
Red Hat recommends creating separate partitions for the /boot, /, /home, /tmp, and /var/tmp/
directories. The reasons for each are different, and we will address each partition.
/boot
This partition is the first partition that is read by the system during boot up. The boot loader and
kernel images that are used to boot your system into Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are stored in this
partition. This partition should not be encrypted. If this partition is included in / and that partition is
encrypted or otherwise becomes unavailable then your system will not be able to boot.
/home
When user data (/home) is stored in / instead of in a separate partition, the partition can fill up
causing the operating system to become unstable. Also, when upgrading your system to the next
version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 it is a lot easier when you can keep your data in the /home
partition as it will not be overwritten during installation. If the root partition (/) becomes corrupt your
data could be lost forever. By using a separate partition there is slightly more protection against data
loss. You can also target this partition for frequent backups.
NOTE
During the installation process, you have an option to encrypt partitions. You must supply
a passphrase. This passphrase serves as a key to unlock the bulk encryption key, which is
used to secure the partition's data. For more information, see Section 4.9.1, “Using LUKS
Disk Encryption”.
For more information about installing the Minimal install environment, see the Software Selection
chapter of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide. A minimal installation can also be
performed by a Kickstart file using the --nobase option. For more information about Kickstart
installations, see the Package Selection section from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide.
When installing a potentially vulnerable operating system, always limit exposure only to the closest
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Security Guide
necessary network zone. The safest choice is the “no network” zone, which means to leave your machine
disconnected during the installation process. In some cases, a LAN or intranet connection is sufficient
while the Internet connection is the riskiest. To follow the best security practices, choose the closest
zone with your repository while installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux from a network.
For more information about configuring network connectivity, see the Network & Hostname chapter of
the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide.
2. Even though the firewall service, firewalld, is automatically enabled with the installation of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux, there are scenarios where it might be explicitly disabled, for example in the
kickstart configuration. In such a case, it is recommended to consider re-enabling the firewall.
3. To enhance security, disable services you do not need. For example, if there are no printers
installed on your computer, disable the cups service using the following command:
[2] Since system BIOSes differ between manufacturers, some may not support password protection of either type,
while others may support one type but not the other.
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CHAPTER 3. KEEPING YOUR SYSTEM UP-TO-DATE
Often, announcements about a given security exploit are accompanied with a patch (or source code)
that fixes the problem. This patch is then applied to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux package and tested
and released as an erratum update. However, if an announcement does not include a patch, Red Hat
developers first work with the maintainer of the software to fix the problem. Once the problem is fixed,
the package is tested and released as an erratum update.
If an erratum update is released for software used on your system, it is highly recommended that you
update the affected packages as soon as possible to minimize the amount of time the system is
potentially vulnerable.
Test security updates when they become available and schedule them for installation. Additional controls
need to be used to protect the system during the time between the release of the update and its
installation on the system. These controls depend on the exact vulnerability, but may include additional
firewall rules, the use of external firewalls, or changes in software settings.
Bugs in supported packages are fixed using the errata mechanism. An erratum consists of one or more
RPM packages accompanied by a brief explanation of the problem that the particular erratum deals with.
All errata are distributed to customers with active subscriptions through the Red Hat Subscription
Management service. Errata that address security issues are called Red Hat Security Advisories.
For more information on working with security errata, see Section 3.2.1, “Viewing Security Advisories on
the Customer Portal”. For detailed information about the Red Hat Subscription Management service,
including instructions on how to migrate from RHN Classic, see the documentation related to this
service: Red Hat Subscription Management.
The Yum package manager includes several security-related features that can be used to search, list,
display, and install security errata. These features also make it possible to use Yum to install nothing but
security updates.
To check for security-related updates available for your system, enter the following command as root:
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Security Guide
Note that the above command runs in a non-interactive mode, so it can be used in scripts for automated
checking whether there are any updates available. The command returns an exit value of 100 when there
are any security updates available and 0 when there are not. On encountering an error, it returns 1.
Use the updateinfo subcommand to display or act upon information provided by repositories about
available updates. The updateinfo subcommand itself accepts a number of commands, some of which
pertain to security-related uses. See Table 3.1, “Security-related commands usable with yum
updateinfo” for an overview of these commands.
Command Description
See the Yum chapter of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide for detailed
information on how to use the Yum package manager.
All Red Hat Enterprise Linux packages are signed with the Red Hat GPG key. GPG stands for GNU
Privacy Guard, or GnuPG, a free software package used for ensuring the authenticity of distributed
files. If the verification of a package signature fails, the package may be altered and therefore cannot be
trusted.
The Yum package manager allows for an automatic verification of all packages it installs or upgrades.
This feature is enabled by default. To configure this option on your system, make sure the gpgcheck
configuration directive is set to 1 in the /etc/yum.conf configuration file.
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CHAPTER 3. KEEPING YOUR SYSTEM UP-TO-DATE
Use the following command to manually verify package files on your filesystem:
See the Product Signing (GPG) Keys article on the Red Hat Customer Portal for additional information
about Red Hat package-signing practices.
To install verified packages (see Section 3.1.2.1, “Verifying Signed Packages” for information on how to
verify packages) from your filesystem, use the yum install command as the root user as follows:
Use a shell glob to install several packages at once. For example, the following commands installs all
.rpm packages in the current directory:
IMPORTANT
Before installing any security errata, be sure to read any special instructions contained in
the erratum report and execute them accordingly. See Section 3.1.3, “Applying Changes
Introduced by Installed Updates” for general instructions about applying changes made
by errata updates.
NOTE
In general, rebooting the system is the surest way to ensure that the latest version of a
software package is used; however, this option is not always required, nor is it always
available to the system administrator.
Applications
User-space applications are any programs that can be initiated by the user. Typically, such
applications are used only when the user, a script, or an automated task utility launch them.
Once such a user-space application is updated, halt any instances of the application on the system,
and launch the program again to use the updated version.
Kernel
The kernel is the core software component for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 operating system. It
manages access to memory, the processor, and peripherals, and it schedules all tasks.
Because of its central role, the kernel cannot be restarted without also rebooting the computer.
Therefore, an updated version of the kernel cannot be used until the system is rebooted.
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Security Guide
KVM
When the qemu-kvm and libvirt packages are updated, it is necessary to stop all guest virtual
machines, reload relevant virtualization modules (or reboot the host system), and restart the virtual
machines.
Use the lsmod command to determine which modules from the following are loaded: kvm, kvm-intel,
or kvm-amd. Then use the modprobe -r command to remove and subsequently the modprobe -a
command to reload the affected modules. Fox example:
Shared Libraries
Shared libraries are units of code, such as glibc, that are used by a number of applications and
services. Applications utilizing a shared library typically load the shared code when the application is
initialized, so any applications using an updated library must be halted and relaunched.
To determine which running applications link against a particular library, use the lsof command:
lsof library
For example, to determine which running applications link against the libwrap.so.0 library, type:
This command returns a list of all the running programs that use TCP wrappers for host-access
control. Therefore, any program listed must be halted and relaunched when the tcp_wrappers
package is updated.
systemd Services
systemd services are persistent server programs usually launched during the boot process. Examples
of systemd services include sshd or vsftpd.
Because these programs usually persist in memory as long as a machine is running, each updated
systemd service must be halted and relaunched after its package is upgraded. This can be done as
the root user using the systemctl command:
Replace service_name with the name of the service you want to restart, such as sshd.
Other Software
Follow the instructions outlined by the resources linked below to correctly update the following
applications.
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CHAPTER 3. KEEPING YOUR SYSTEM UP-TO-DATE
Red Hat Directory Server — See the Release Notes for the version of the Red Hat
Directory Server in question at https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Directory_Server/.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager — See the Installation Guide for the version of
the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization in question at
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization/.
To browse a list of all security updates for all active Red Hat products, go to Security → Security
Updates → Active Products using the navigation menu at the top of the page.
Click on the erratum code in the left part of the table to display more detailed information about the
individual advisories. The next page contains not only a description of the given erratum, including its
causes, consequences, and required fixes, but also a list of all packages that the particular erratum
updates along with instructions on how to apply the updates. The page also includes links to relevant
references, such as related CVE.
Click on the CVE code in the left part of the table to display more detailed information about the
individual vulnerabilities. The next page contains not only a description of the given CVE but also a list of
affected Red Hat products along with links to relevant Red Hat errata.
Together, these ratings help you understand the impact of security issues, allowing you to schedule and
prioritize upgrade strategies for your systems. Note that the ratings reflect the potential risk of a given
vulnerability, which is based on a technical analysis of the bug, not the current threat level. This means
that the security impact rating does not change if an exploit is released for a particular flaw.
To see a detailed description of the individual levels of severity ratings on the Customer Portal, visit the
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Security Guide
To see a detailed description of the individual levels of severity ratings on the Customer Portal, visit the
Severity Ratings page.
Installed Documentation
yum(8) — The manual page for the Yum package manager provides information about the way
Yum can be used to install, update, and remove packages on your systems.
rpmkeys(8) — The manual page for the rpmkeys utility describes the way this program can be
used to verify the authenticity of downloaded packages.
Online Documentation
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide — The System Administrator's Guide
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 documents the use of the Yum and rpm commands that are
used to install, update, and remove packages on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 systems.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 SELinux User's and Administrator's Guide — The SELinux User's and
Administrator's Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 documents the configuration of the
SELinux mandatory access control mechanism.
Red Hat Security Blog — Articles about latest security-related issues from Red Hat security
professionals.
See Also
Chapter 2, Security Tips for Installation describes how to configure your system securely from
the beginning to make it easier to implement additional security settings later.
Section 4.9.2, “Creating GPG Keys” describes how to create a set of personal GPG keys to
authenticate your communications.
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
For security purposes, the installation program configures the system to use Secure Hash Algorithm 512
(SHA512) and shadow passwords. It is highly recommended that you do not alter these settings.
If shadow passwords are deselected during installation, all passwords are stored as a one-way hash in the
world-readable /etc/passwd file, which makes the system vulnerable to offline password cracking
attacks. If an intruder can gain access to the machine as a regular user, he can copy the /etc/passwd file
to his own machine and run any number of password cracking programs against it. If there is an insecure
password in the file, it is only a matter of time before the password cracker discovers it.
Shadow passwords eliminate this type of attack by storing the password hashes in the file /etc/shadow,
which is readable only by the root user.
This forces a potential attacker to attempt password cracking remotely by logging into a network service
on the machine, such as SSH or FTP. This sort of brute-force attack is much slower and leaves an
obvious trail as hundreds of failed login attempts are written to system files. Of course, if the cracker
starts an attack in the middle of the night on a system with weak passwords, the cracker may have
gained access before dawn and edited the log files to cover his tracks.
In addition to format and storage considerations is the issue of content. The single most important thing
a user can do to protect his account against a password cracking attack is create a strong password.
NOTE
Red Hat recommends using a central authentication solution, such as Red Hat Identity
Management (IdM). Using a central solution is preferred over using local passwords. For
details, see:
When creating a secure password, the user must remember that long passwords are stronger than short
and complex ones. It is not a good idea to create a password of just eight characters, even if it contains
digits, special characters and uppercase letters. Password cracking tools, such as John The Ripper, are
optimized for breaking such passwords, which are also hard to remember by a person.
In information theory, entropy is the level of uncertainty associated with a random variable and is
presented in bits. The higher the entropy value, the more secure the password is. According to NIST SP
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Security Guide
800-63-1, passwords that are not present in a dictionary comprised of 50000 commonly selected
passwords should have at least 10 bits of entropy. As such, a password that consists of four random
words contains around 40 bits of entropy. A long password consisting of multiple words for added
security is also called a passphrase, for example:
If the system enforces the use of uppercase letters, digits, or special characters, the passphrase that
follows the above recommendation can be modified in a simple way, for example by changing the first
character to uppercase and appending "1!". Note that such a modification does not increase the security
of the passphrase significantly.
Another way to create a password yourself is using a password generator. The pwmake is a command-
line tool for generating random passwords that consist of all four groups of characters – uppercase,
lowercase, digits and special characters. The utility allows you to specify the number of entropy bits that
are used to generate the password. The entropy is pulled from /dev/urandom. The minimum number of
bits you can specify is 56, which is enough for passwords on systems and services where brute force
attacks are rare. 64 bits is adequate for applications where the attacker does not have direct access to
the password hash file. For situations when the attacker might obtain the direct access to the password
hash or the password is used as an encryption key, 80 to 128 bits should be used. If you specify an invalid
number of entropy bits, pwmake will use the default of bits. To create a password of 128 bits, enter the
following command:
pwmake 128
While there are different approaches to creating a secure password, always avoid the following bad
practices:
Using a single dictionary word, a word in a foreign language, an inverted word, or only numbers.
Using personal information in a password, such as birth dates, anniversaries, family member
names, or pet names.
While creating secure passwords is imperative, managing them properly is also important, especially for
system administrators within larger organizations. The following section details good practices for
creating and managing user passwords within an organization.
If an organization has a large number of users, the system administrators have two basic options
available to force the use of strong passwords. They can create passwords for the user, or they can let
users create their own passwords while verifying the passwords are of adequate strength.
Creating the passwords for the users ensures that the passwords are good, but it becomes a daunting
task as the organization grows. It also increases the risk of users writing their passwords down, thus
exposing them.
For these reasons, most system administrators prefer to have the users create their own passwords, but
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
For these reasons, most system administrators prefer to have the users create their own passwords, but
actively verify that these passwords are strong enough. In some cases, administrators may force users to
change their passwords periodically through password aging.
When users are asked to create or change passwords, they can use the passwd command-line utility,
which is PAM-aware (Pluggable Authentication Modules) and checks to see if the password is too short
or otherwise easy to crack. This checking is performed by the pam_pwquality.so PAM module.
NOTE
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the pam_pwquality PAM module replaced pam_cracklib,
which was used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a default module for password quality
checking. It uses the same back end as pam_cracklib.
The pam_pwquality module is used to check a password's strength against a set of rules. Its procedure
consists of two steps: first it checks if the provided password is found in a dictionary. If not, it continues
with a number of additional checks. pam_pwquality is stacked alongside other PAM modules in the
password component of the /etc/pam.d/passwd file, and the custom set of rules is specified in the
/etc/security/pwquality.conf configuration file. For a complete list of these checks, see the
pwquality.conf (8) manual page.
To enable using pam_quality, add the following line to the password stack in the
/etc/pam.d/passwd file:
Options for the checks are specified one per line. For example, to require a password with a minimum
length of 8 characters, including all four classes of characters, add the following lines to the
/etc/security/pwquality.conf file:
minlen = 8
minclass = 4
To set a password strength-check for character sequences and same consecutive characters, add
the following lines to /etc/security/pwquality.conf:
maxsequence = 3
maxrepeat = 3
In this example, the password entered cannot contain more than 3 characters in a monotonic
sequence, such as abcd, and more than 3 identical consecutive characters, such as 1111.
NOTE
As the root user is the one who enforces the rules for password creation, they can set any
password for themselves or for a regular user, despite the warning messages.
Password aging is another technique used by system administrators to defend against bad passwords
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Security Guide
within an organization. Password aging means that after a specified period (usually 90 days), the user is
prompted to create a new password. The theory behind this is that if a user is forced to change his
password periodically, a cracked password is only useful to an intruder for a limited amount of time. The
downside to password aging, however, is that users are more likely to write their passwords down.
To specify password aging under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, make use of the chage command.
IMPORTANT
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, shadow passwords are enabled by default. For more
information, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide .
The -M option of the chage command specifies the maximum number of days the password is valid. For
example, to set a user's password to expire in 90 days, use the following command:
chage -M 90 username
In the above command, replace username with the name of the user. To disable password expiration,
use the value of -1 after the -M option.
For more information on the options available with the chage command, see the table below.
Option Description
-d days Specifies the number of days since January 1, 1970 the password was
changed.
-E date Specifies the date on which the account is locked, in the format YYYY-MM-
DD. Instead of the date, the number of days since January 1, 1970 can also
be used.
-I days Specifies the number of inactive days after the password expiration before
locking the account. If the value is 0, the account is not locked after the
password expires.
-m days Specify the minimum number of days after which the user must change
passwords. If the value is 0, the password does not expire.
-M days Specify the maximum number of days for which the password is valid. When
the number of days specified by this option plus the number of days
specified with the -d option is less than the current day, the user must
change passwords before using the account.
-W days Specifies the number of days before the password expiration date to warn
the user.
You can also use the chage command in interactive mode to modify multiple password aging and
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
You can also use the chage command in interactive mode to modify multiple password aging and
account details. Use the following command to enter interactive mode:
chage <username>
You can configure a password to expire the first time a user logs in. This forces users to change
passwords immediately.
1. Set up an initial password. To assign a default password, enter the following command at a shell
prompt as root:
passwd username
WARNING
The passwd utility has the option to set a null password. Using a null
password, while convenient, is a highly insecure practice, as any third party
can log in and access the system using the insecure user name. Avoid using
null passwords wherever possible. If it is not possible, always make sure that
the user is ready to log in before unlocking an account with a null password.
chage -d 0 username
This command sets the value for the date the password was last changed to the epoch (January
1, 1970). This value forces immediate password expiration no matter what password aging
policy, if any, is in place.
Upon the initial log in, the user is now prompted for a new password.
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With the pam_faillock module, failed login attempts are stored in a separate file for each user in the
/var/run/faillock directory.
NOTE
The order of lines in the failed attempt log files is important. Any change in this order can
lock all user accounts, including the root user account when the even_deny_root option
is used.
1. To lock out any non-root user after three unsuccessful attempts and unlock that user after 10
minutes, add two lines to the auth section of the /etc/pam.d/system-auth and
/etc/pam.d/password-auth files. After your edits, the entire auth section in both files should
look like this:
2. Add the following line to the account section of both files specified in the previous step:
3. To apply account locking for the root user as well, add the even_deny_root option to the
pam_faillock entries in the /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth files:
When the user john attempts to log in for the fourth time after failing to log in three times previously,
his account is locked upon the fourth attempt:
~]$ su - john
Account locked due to 3 failed logins
su: incorrect password
To prevent the system from locking users out even after multiple failed logins, add the following line just
above the line where pam_faillock is called for the first time in both /etc/pam.d/system-auth and
/etc/pam.d/password-auth. Also replace user1, user2, and user3 with the actual user names.
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
To view the number of failed attempts per user, run, as root, the following command:
~]$ faillock
john:
When Type Source Valid
2013-03-05 11:44:14 TTY pts/0 V
IMPORTANT
Running cron jobs resets the failure counter of pam_faillock of that user that is running
the cron job, and thus pam_faillock should not be configured for cron. See the
Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) solution for more information.
1. Check whether the system-auth and password-auth files are already symbolic links pointing to
system-auth-ac and password-auth-ac (this is the system default):
~]# ls -l /etc/pam.d/{password,system}-auth
If the output is similar to the following, the symbolic links are in place, and you can skip to step
number 3:
If the system-auth and password-auth files are not symbolic links, continue with the next step.
~]# vi /etc/pam.d/system-auth-local
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Security Guide
~]# vi /etc/pam.d/password-auth-local
For more information on various pam_faillock configuration options, see the pam_faillock(8) manual
page.
See the Will nullok option allow users to login without entering a password? KCS solution for more
information.
NOTE
The main advantage of locking the screen instead of logging out is that a lock allows the
user's processes (such as file transfers) to continue running. Logging out would stop
these processes.
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
Users may also need to lock a virtual console. This can be done using a utility called vlock. To install this
utility, execute the following command as root:
After installation, any console session can be locked using the vlock command without any additional
parameters. This locks the currently active virtual console session while still allowing access to the
others. To prevent access to all virtual consoles on the workstation, execute the following:
vlock -a
In this case, vlock locks the currently active console and the -a option prevents switching to other virtual
consoles.
The above udev rule ensures that any newly connected removable block (storage) device is
automatically configured as read-only using the blockdev utility.
To force udev to re-apply all rules to already existing devices, enter the following command as root:
~# udevadm trigger
Note that forcing udev to re-apply all rules using the above command does not affect any storage
devices that are already mounted.
To force udev to reload all rules (in case the new rules are not automatically detected for some reason),
use the following command:
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Security Guide
When administering a home machine, the user must perform some tasks as the root user or by acquiring
effective root privileges using a setuid program, such as sudo or su. A setuid program is one that
operates with the user ID (UID) of the program's owner rather than the user operating the program.
Such programs are denoted by an s in the owner section of a long format listing, as in the following
example:
~]$ ls -l /bin/su
-rwsr-xr-x. 1 root root 34904 Mar 10 2011 /bin/su
NOTE
The s may be upper case or lower case. If it appears as upper case, it means that the
underlying permission bit has not been set.
For the system administrator of an organization, however, choices must be made as to how much
administrative access users within the organization should have to their machines. Through a PAM
module called pam_console.so, some activities normally reserved only for the root user, such as
rebooting and mounting removable media, are allowed for the first user that logs in at the physical
console. However, other important system administration tasks, such as altering network settings,
configuring a new mouse, or mounting network devices, are not possible without administrative
privileges. As a result, system administrators must decide how much access the users on their network
should receive.
The following are four different ways that an administrator can further ensure that root logins are
disallowed:
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
Prevents access to a root shell and logs any such Programs that do not require a shell, such as FTP
attempts. The following programs are prevented clients, mail clients, and many setuid programs. The
from accessing the root account: following programs are not prevented from
accessing the root account:
login
sudo
gdm
FTP clients
kdm
Email clients
xdm
su
ssh
scp
sftp
By default, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7's /etc/securetty file only allows the root user to log in at the
console physically attached to the machine. To prevent the root user from logging in, remove the
contents of this file by typing the following command at a shell prompt as root:
To enable securetty support in the KDM, GDM, and XDM login managers, add the following line:
/etc/pam.d/gdm
/etc/pam.d/gdm-autologin
/etc/pam.d/gdm-fingerprint
/etc/pam.d/gdm-password
/etc/pam.d/gdm-smartcard
/etc/pam.d/kdm
/etc/pam.d/kdm-np
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/etc/pam.d/xdm
WARNING
A blank /etc/securetty file does not prevent the root user from logging in
remotely using the OpenSSH suite of tools because the console is not opened
until after authentication.
Prevents access to the root account using the Programs that do not log in as root, but perform
console or the network. The following programs are administrative tasks through setuid or other
prevented from accessing the root account: mechanisms. The following programs are not
prevented from accessing the root account:
login
su
gdm
sudo
kdm
ssh
xdm
scp
Other network services that open a tty
sftp
#PermitRootLogin yes
to read as follows:
PermitRootLogin no
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
Prevents root access using the OpenSSH suite of Programs that are not part of the OpenSSH suite
tools. The following programs are prevented from of tools.
accessing the root account:
ssh
scp
sftp
The following is an example of how the module is used for the vsftpd FTP server in the
/etc/pam.d/vsftpd PAM configuration file (the \ character at the end of the first line is not necessary
if the directive is on a single line):
This instructs PAM to consult the /etc/vsftpd.ftpusers file and deny access to the service for any
listed user. The administrator can change the name of this file, and can keep separate lists for each
service or use one central list to deny access to multiple services.
If the administrator wants to deny access to multiple services, a similar line can be added to the PAM
configuration files, such as /etc/pam.d/pop and /etc/pam.d/imap for mail clients, or /etc/pam.d/ssh
for SSH clients.
For more information about PAM, see The Linux-PAM System Administrator's Guide , located in the
/usr/share/doc/pam-<version>/html/ directory.
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Security Guide
Prevents root access to network services that are Programs and services that are not PAM aware.
PAM aware. The following services are prevented
from accessing the root account:
login
gdm
kdm
xdm
ssh
scp
sftp
FTP clients
Email clients
On the other hand, giving root access to individual users can lead to the following issues:
Machine Misconfiguration — Users with root access can misconfigure their machines and require
assistance to resolve issues. Even worse, they might open up security holes without knowing it.
Running Insecure Services — Users with root access might run insecure servers on their machine,
such as FTP or Telnet, potentially putting usernames and passwords at risk. These services
transmit this information over the network in plain text.
Running Email Attachments As Root — Although rare, email viruses that affect Linux do exist. A
malicious program poses the greatest threat when run by the root user.
Keeping the audit trail intact — Because the root account is often shared by multiple users, so
that multiple system administrators can maintain the system, it is impossible to figure out which
of those users was root at a given time. When using separate logins, the account a user logs in
with, as well as a unique number for session tracking purposes, is put into the task structure,
which is inherited by every process that the user starts. When using concurrent logins, the
unique number can be used to trace actions to specific logins. When an action generates an
audit event, it is recorded with the login account and the session associated with that unique
number. Use the aulast command to view these logins and sessions. The --proof option of the
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
aulast command can be used suggest a specific ausearch query to isolate auditable events
generated by a particular session. For more information about the Audit system, see Chapter 6,
System Auditing.
1. As root, add the following line at the beginning of the /etc/profile file to make sure the
processing of this file cannot be interrupted:
trap "" 1 2 3 15
2. As root, insert the following lines to the /etc/profile file to automatically log out after 120
seconds:
export TMOUT=120
readonly TMOUT
The TMOUT variable terminates the shell if there is no activity for the specified number of
seconds (set to 120 in the above example). You can change the limit according to the needs of
the particular installation.
1. Preventing Access to Single User Mode — If attackers can boot the system into single user mode,
they are logged in automatically as root without being prompted for the root password.
WARNING
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2. Preventing Access to the GRUB 2 Console — If the machine uses GRUB 2 as its boot loader, an
attacker can use the GRUB 2 editor interface to change its configuration or to gather
information using the cat command.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes the GRUB 2 boot loader on the Intel 64 and AMD64 platform. For a
detailed look at GRUB 2, see the Working With the GRUB 2 Boot Loader chapter in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide.
Pressing the I key at the beginning of the boot sequence allows you to start up your system
interactively. During an interactive startup, the system prompts you to start up each service one by one.
However, this may allow an attacker who gains physical access to your system to disable the security-
related services and gain access to the system.
To prevent users from starting up the system interactively, as root, disable the PROMPT parameter in
the /etc/sysconfig/init file:
PROMPT=no
The user already has read and write access to the file to which they link.
In case of symbolic links, processes are only permitted to follow links when outside of world-writeable
directories with sticky bits, or one of the following needs to be true:
The process following the symbolic link is the owner of the symbolic link.
The owner of the directory is the same as the owner of the symbolic link.
fs.protected_hardlinks = 1
fs.protected_symlinks = 1
To override the default settings and disable the protection, create a new configuration file called, for
example, 51-no-protect-links.conf in the /etc/sysctl.d/ directory with the following content:
fs.protected_hardlinks = 0
fs.protected_symlinks = 0
NOTE
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
NOTE
Note that in order to override the default system settings, the new configuration file
needs to have the .conf extension, and it needs to be read after the default system file
(the files are read in lexicographic order, therefore settings contained in a file with a
higher number at the beginning of the file name take precedence).
See the sysctl.d(5) manual page for more detailed information about the configuration of kernel
parameters at boot using the sysctl mechanism.
Many services under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are network servers. If a network service is running on a
machine, then a server application (called a daemon), is listening for connections on one or more
network ports. Each of these servers should be treated as a potential avenue of attack.
Denial of Service Attacks (DoS) — By flooding a service with requests, a denial of service attack
can render a system unusable as it tries to log and answer each request.
Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS) — A type of DoS attack which uses multiple
compromised machines (often numbering in the thousands or more) to direct a coordinated
attack on a service, flooding it with requests and making it unusable.
Script Vulnerability Attacks — If a server is using scripts to execute server-side actions, as Web
servers commonly do, an attacker can target improperly written scripts. These script
vulnerability attacks can lead to a buffer overflow condition or allow the attacker to alter files on
the system.
Buffer Overflow Attacks — Services that want to listen on ports 1 through 1023 must start either
with administrative privileges or the CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability needs to be set for
them. Once a process is bound to a port and is listening on it, the privileges or the capability are
often dropped. If the privileges or the capability are not dropped, and the application has an
exploitable buffer overflow, an attacker could gain access to the system as the user running the
daemon. Because exploitable buffer overflows exist, crackers use automated tools to identify
systems with vulnerabilities, and once they have gained access, they use automated rootkits to
maintain their access to the system.
NOTE
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Security Guide
NOTE
The threat of buffer overflow vulnerabilities is mitigated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 by
ExecShield, an executable memory segmentation and protection technology supported
by x86-compatible uni- and multi-processor kernels. ExecShield reduces the risk of
buffer overflow by separating virtual memory into executable and non-executable
segments. Any program code that tries to execute outside of the executable segment
(such as malicious code injected from a buffer overflow exploit) triggers a segmentation
fault and terminates.
Execshield also includes support for No eXecute (NX) technology on AMD64 platforms
and Intel® 64 systems. These technologies work in conjunction with ExecShield to
prevent malicious code from running in the executable portion of virtual memory with a
granularity of 4KB of executable code, lowering the risk of attack from buffer overflow
exploits.
IMPORTANT
To limit exposure to attacks over the network, all services that are unused should be
turned off.
cups — The default print server for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
xinetd — A super server that controls connections to a range of subordinate servers, such as
gssftp and telnet.
When determining whether to leave these services running, it is best to use common sense and avoid
taking any risks. For example, if a printer is not available, do not leave cups running. The same is true for
portreserve. If you do not mount NFSv3 volumes or use NIS (the ypbind service), then rpcbind should
be disabled. Checking which network services are available to start at boot time is not sufficient. It is
recommended to also check which ports are open and listening. Refer to Section 4.4.2, “Verifying Which
Ports Are Listening” for more information.
Some network protocols are inherently more insecure than others. These include any services that:
Transmit Usernames and Passwords Over a Network Unencrypted — Many older protocols, such
as Telnet and FTP, do not encrypt the authentication session and should be avoided whenever
possible.
Transmit Sensitive Data Over a Network Unencrypted — Many protocols transmit data over the
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
Transmit Sensitive Data Over a Network Unencrypted — Many protocols transmit data over the
network unencrypted. These protocols include Telnet, FTP, HTTP, and SMTP. Many network file
systems, such as NFS and SMB, also transmit information over the network unencrypted. It is the
user's responsibility when using these protocols to limit what type of data is transmitted.
Examples of inherently insecure services include rlogin, rsh, telnet, and vsftpd.
All remote login and shell programs (rlogin, rsh, and telnet) should be avoided in favor of SSH. See
Section 4.3.11, “Securing SSH” for more information about sshd.
FTP is not as inherently dangerous to the security of the system as remote shells, but FTP servers must
be carefully configured and monitored to avoid problems. See Section 4.3.9, “Securing FTP” for more
information about securing FTP servers.
auth
nfs-server
yppasswdd
ypserv
ypxfrd
More information on securing network services is available in Section 4.4, “Securing Network Access” .
NOTE
Securing rpcbind only affects NFSv2 and NFSv3 implementations, since NFSv4 no
longer requires it. If you plan to implement an NFSv2 or NFSv3 server, then rpcbind is
required, and the following section applies.
It is important to use TCP Wrappers to limit which networks or hosts have access to the rpcbind service
since it has no built-in form of authentication.
Further, use only IP addresses when limiting access to the service. Avoid using host names, as they can
be forged by DNS poisoning and other methods.
To further restrict access to the rpcbind service, it is a good idea to add firewalld rules to the server
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Security Guide
To further restrict access to the rpcbind service, it is a good idea to add firewalld rules to the server
and restrict access to specific networks.
Below are two example firewalld rich language commands. The first allows TCP connections to the port
111 (used by the rpcbind service) from the 192.168.0.0/24 network. The second allows TCP connections
to the same port from the localhost. All other packets are dropped.
NOTE
Add --permanent to the firewalld rich language commands to make the settings
permanent. See Chapter 5, Using Firewalls for more information about implementing
firewalls.
It is important to use TCP Wrappers to limit which networks or hosts have access to the rpc.mountd
service since it has no built-in form of authentication.
Further, use only IP addresses when limiting access to the service. Avoid using host names, as they can
be forged by DNS poisoning and other methods.
To further restrict access to the rpc.mountd service, add firewalld rich language rules to the server and
restrict access to specific networks.
Below are two example firewalld rich language commands. The first allows mountd connections from
the 192.168.0.0/24 network. The second allows mountd connections from the local host. All other
packets are dropped.
NOTE
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
NOTE
Add --permanent to the firewalld rich language commands to make the settings
permanent. See Chapter 5, Using Firewalls for more information about implementing
firewalls.
/usr/sbin/rpc.yppasswdd — Also called the yppasswdd service, this daemon allows users to
change their NIS passwords.
/usr/sbin/rpc.ypxfrd — Also called the ypxfrd service, this daemon is responsible for NIS map
transfers over the network.
NIS is somewhat insecure by today's standards. It has no host authentication mechanisms and transmits
all of its information over the network unencrypted, including password hashes. As a result, extreme care
must be taken when setting up a network that uses NIS. This is further complicated by the fact that the
default configuration of NIS is inherently insecure.
It is recommended that anyone planning to implement a NIS server first secure the rpcbind service as
outlined in Section 4.3.4, “Securing rpcbind”, then address the following issues, such as network
planning.
Because NIS transmits sensitive information unencrypted over the network, it is important the service be
run behind a firewall and on a segmented and secure network. Whenever NIS information is transmitted
over an insecure network, it risks being intercepted. Careful network design can help prevent severe
security breaches.
Any machine within a NIS domain can use commands to extract information from the server without
authentication, as long as the user knows the NIS server's DNS host name and NIS domain name.
For instance, if someone either connects a laptop computer into the network or breaks into the network
from outside (and manages to spoof an internal IP address), the following command reveals the
/etc/passwd map:
If this attacker is a root user, they can obtain the /etc/shadow file by typing the following command:
NOTE
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Security Guide
NOTE
If Kerberos is used, the /etc/shadow file is not stored within a NIS map.
To make access to NIS maps harder for an attacker, create a random string for the DNS host name, such
as o7hfawtgmhwg.domain.com. Similarly, create a different randomized NIS domain name. This makes
it much more difficult for an attacker to access the NIS server.
If the /var/yp/securenets file is blank or does not exist (as is the case after a default installation), NIS
listens to all networks. One of the first things to do is to put netmask/network pairs in the file so that
ypserv only responds to requests from the appropriate network.
255.255.255.0 192.168.0.0
WARNING
Never start a NIS server for the first time without creating the /var/yp/securenets
file.
This technique does not provide protection from an IP spoofing attack, but it does at least place limits
on what networks the NIS server services.
All of the servers related to NIS can be assigned specific ports except for rpc.yppasswdd — the daemon
that allows users to change their login passwords. Assigning ports to the other two NIS server daemons,
rpc.ypxfrd and ypserv, allows for the creation of firewall rules to further protect the NIS server
daemons from intruders.
YPSERV_ARGS="-p 834"
YPXFRD_ARGS="-p 835"
The following rich language firewalld rules can then be used to enforce which network the server listens
to for these ports:
This means that the server only allows connections to ports 834 and 835 if the requests come from the
192.168.0.0/24 network. The first rule is for TCP and the second for UDP.
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CHAPTER 4. HARDENING YOUR SYSTEM WITH TOOLS AND SERVICES
NOTE
See Chapter 5, Using Firewalls for more information about implementing firewalls with
iptables commands.
One of the issues to consider when NIS is used for authentication is that whenever a user logs into a
machine, a password hash from the /etc/shadow map is sent over the network. If an intruder gains
access to a NIS domain and sniffs network traffic, they can collect user names and password hashes.
With enough time, a password cracking program can guess weak passwords, and an attacker can gain
access to a valid account on the network.
Since Kerberos uses secret-key cryptography, no password hashes are ever sent over the network,
making the system far more secure. See the Logging into IdM Using Kerberos section in the Linux
Domain Identity, Authentication, and Policy Guide for more information about Kerberos.
IMPORTANT
NFS traffic can be sent using TCP in all versions, it should be used with NFSv3, rather
than UDP, and is required when using NFSv4. All versions of NFS support Kerberos user
and group authentication, as part of the RPCSEC_GSS kernel module. Information on
rpcbind is still included, since Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 supports NFSv3 which utilizes
rpcbind.
NFSv2 and NFSv3 traditionally passed data insecurely. All versions of NFS now have the ability to
authenticate (and optionally encrypt) ordinary file system operations using Kerberos. Under NFSv4 all
operations can use Kerberos; under NFSv2 or NFSv3, file locking and mounting still do not use it. When
using NFSv4.0, delegations may be turned off if the clients are behind NAT or a firewall. For information
on the use of NFSv4.1 to allow delegations to operate through NAT and firewalls, see the pNFS section
of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Storage Administration Guide.
The use of the mount command in the /etc/fstab file is explained in the Using the mount Command
chapter of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Storage Administration Guide. From a security administration
point of view it is worthwhile to note that the NFS mount options can also be specified in
/etc/nfsmount.conf, which can be used to set custom default options.
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Security Guide
WARNING
Only export entire file systems. Exporting a subdirectory of a file system can be a
security issue. It is possible in some cases for a client to "break out" of the exported
part of the file system and get to unexported parts (see the section on subtree
checking in the exports(5) man page.
Use the ro option to export the file system as read-only whenever possible to reduce the number of
users able to write to the mounted file system. Only use the rw option when specifically required. See
the man exports(5) page for more information. Allowing write access increases the risk from symlink
attacks for example. This includes temporary directories such as /tmp and /usr/tmp.
Where directories must be mounted with the rw option avoid making them world-writable whenever
possible to reduce risk. Exporting home directories is also viewed as a risk as some applications store
passwords in clear text or weakly encrypted. This risk is being reduced as application code is reviewed
and improved. Some users do not set passwords on their SSH keys so this too means home directories
present a risk. Enforcing the use of passwords or using Kerberos would mitigate that risk.
Restrict exports only to clients that need access. Use the showmount -e command on an NFS server to
review what the server is exporting. Do not export anything that is not specifically required.
Do not use the no_root_squash option and review existing installations to make sure it is not used. See
Section 4.3.7.4, “Do Not Use the no_root_squash Option” for more information.
The secure option is the server-side export option used to restrict exports to “reserved” ports. By
default, the server allows client communication only from “reserved” ports (ports numbered less than
1024), because traditionally clients have only allowed “trusted” code (such as in-kernel NFS clients) to
use those ports. However, on many networks it is not difficult for anyone to become root on some client,
so it is rarely safe for the server to assume that communication from a reserved port is privileged.
Therefore the restriction to reserved ports is of limited value; it is better to rely on Kerberos, firewalls,
and restriction of exports to particular clients.
Most clients still do use reserved ports when possible. However, reserved ports are a limited resource, so
clients (especially those with a large number of NFS mounts) may choose to use higher-numbered ports
as well. Linux clients may do this using the “noresvport” mount option. If you want to allow this on an
export, you may do so with the “insecure” export option.
It is good practice not to allow users to login to a server. While reviewing the above settings on an NFS
server conduct a review of who and what can access the server.
Use the nosuid option to disallow the use of a setuid program. The nosuid option disables the set-
user-identifier or set-group-identifier bits. This prevents remote users from gaining higher privileges
by running a setuid program. Use this option on the client and the server side.
The noexec option disables all executable files on the client. Use this to prevent users from
inadvertently executing files placed in the file system being shared. The nosuid and noexec options are
standard options for most, if not all, file systems.
Use the nodev option to prevent “device-files” from being processed as a hardware device by the client.
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The resvport option is a client-side mount option and secure is the corresponding server-side export
option (see explanation above). It restricts communication to a "reserved port". The reserved or "well
known" ports are reserved for privileged users and processes such as the root user. Setting this option
causes the client to use a reserved source port to communicate with the server.
All versions of NFS now support mounting with Kerberos authentication. The mount option to enable
this is: sec=krb5.
NFSv4 supports mounting with Kerberos using krb5i for integrity and krb5p for privacy protection.
These are used when mounting with sec=krb5, but need to be configured on the NFS server. See the
man page on exports (man 5 exports) for more information.
The NFS man page (man 5 nfs) has a “SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS” section which explains the
security enhancements in NFSv4 and contains all the NFS specific mount options.
IMPORTANT
The MIT Kerberos libraries provided by the krb5-libs package do not support using the
Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm in new deployments. Due to security and also
certain compatibility reasons, DES is deprecated and disabled by default in the Kerberos
libraries. Use DES only for compatibility reasons if your environment does not support any
newer and more secure algorithm.
The NFS server determines which file systems to export and which hosts to export these directories to
by consulting the /etc/exports file. Be careful not to add extraneous spaces when editing this file.
For instance, the following line in the /etc/exports file shares the directory /tmp/nfs/ to the host
bob.example.com with read/write permissions.
/tmp/nfs/ bob.example.com(rw)
The following line in the /etc/exports file, on the other hand, shares the same directory to the host
bob.example.com with read-only permissions and shares it to the world with read/write permissions due
to a single space character after the host name.
It is good practice to check any configured NFS shares by using the showmount command to verify
what is being shared:
showmount -e <hostname>
By default, NFS shares change the root user to the nfsnobody user, an unprivileged user account. This
changes the owner of all root-created files to nfsnobody, which prevents uploading of programs with
the setuid bit set.
If no_root_squash is used, remote root users are able to change any file on the shared file system and
leave applications infected by Trojans for other users to inadvertently execute.
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NFSv4 is the default version of NFS for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and it only requires port 2049 to be
open for TCP. If using NFSv3 then four additional ports are required as explained below.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, set the TCP and UDP port for the NFS lock manager (nlockmgr) in the
/etc/modprobe.d/lockd.conf file:
Port numbers specified must not be used by any other service. Configure your firewall to allow the port
numbers specified, as well as TCP and UDP port 2049 (NFS). See /etc/modprobe.d/lockd.conf for
descriptions of additional customizable NFS lock manager parameters.
Run the rpcinfo -p command on the NFS server to see which ports and RPC programs are being used.
Kerberos-aware NFS setup can be greatly simplified in an environment that is using Red Hat Identity
Management, which is included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Linux Domain Identity, Authentication, and Policy Guide , in
particular Setting up a Kerberos-aware NFS Server to learn how to secure NFS with Kerberos when using
Red Hat Identity Management.
The Apache HTTP Server is one of the most stable and secure services in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. A
large number of options and techniques are available to secure the Apache HTTP Server — too
numerous to delve into deeply here. The following section briefly explains good practices when running
the Apache HTTP Server.
Always verify that any scripts running on the system work as intended before putting them into
production. Also, ensure that only the root user has write permissions to any directory containing scripts
or CGIs. To do this, enter the following commands as the root user:
System administrators should be careful when using the following configuration options (configured in
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf):
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FollowSymLinks
This directive is enabled by default, so be sure to use caution when creating symbolic links to the
document root of the Web server. For instance, it is a bad idea to provide a symbolic link to /.
Indexes
This directive is enabled by default, but may not be desirable. To prevent visitors from browsing files
on the server, remove this directive.
UserDir
The UserDir directive is disabled by default because it can confirm the presence of a user account
on the system. To enable user directory browsing on the server, use the following directives:
UserDir enabled
UserDir disabled root
These directives activate user directory browsing for all user directories other than /root/. To add
users to the list of disabled accounts, add a space-delimited list of users on the UserDir disabled
line.
ServerTokens
The ServerTokens directive controls the server response header field which is sent back to clients. It
includes various information which can be customized using the following parameters:
ServerTokens Full (default option) — provides all available information (OS type and used
modules), for example:
Apache
Apache/2
Apache/2.0
Apache/2.0.41
Apache/2.0.41 (Unix)
It is recommended to use the ServerTokens Prod option so that a possible attacker does not gain
any valuable information about your system.
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IMPORTANT
Do not remove the IncludesNoExec directive. By default, the Server-Side Includes (SSI)
module cannot execute commands. It is recommended that you do not change this
setting unless absolutely necessary, as it could, potentially, enable an attacker to execute
commands on the system.
Note that the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory contains configuration files which are used to load modules as
well.
NGINX is a high-performance HTTP and proxy server. This section briefly documents additional steps
that harden your NGINX configuration. Perform all of the following configuration changes in the server
section of your NGINX configuration files.
server_tokens off;
This has the effect of removing the version number and simply reporting the string nginx in all requests
served by NGINX:
add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN; — this option denies any page outside of your
domain to frame any content served by NGINX, effectively mitigating clickjacking attacks.
If enabled, some of the HTTP methods may allow an attacker to perform actions on the web server that
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If enabled, some of the HTTP methods may allow an attacker to perform actions on the web server that
were designed for developers to test web applications. For example, the TRACE method is known to
allow Cross-Site Tracing (XST).
Your NGINX server can disallow these harmful HTTP methods as well as any arbitrary methods by
whitelisting only those that should be allowed. For example:
# Allow GET, PUT, POST; return "405 Method Not Allowed" for all others.
if ( $request_method !~ ^(GET|PUT|POST)$ ) {
return 405;
}
Configuring SSL
To protect the data served by your NGINX web server, consider serving it over HTTPS only. To generate
a secure configuration profile for enabling SSL in your NGINX server, see the Mozilla SSL Configuration
Generator. The generated configuration assures that known vulnerable protocols (for example, SSLv2 or
SSLv3), ciphers, and hashing algorithms (for example, 3DES or MD5) are disabled.
You can also use the SSL Server Test to verify that your configuration meets modern security
requirements.
Red Hat Content Accelerator (tux) — A kernel-space Web server with FTP capabilities.
The following security guidelines are for setting up the vsftpd FTP service.
Before submitting a user name and password, all users are presented with a greeting banner. By default,
this banner includes version information useful to crackers trying to identify weaknesses in a system.
To change the greeting banner for vsftpd, add the following directive to the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
file:
ftpd_banner=<insert_greeting_here>
Replace <insert_greeting_here> in the above directive with the text of the greeting message.
For mutli-line banners, it is best to use a banner file. To simplify management of multiple banners, place
all banners in a new directory called /etc/banners/. The banner file for FTP connections in this example is
/etc/banners/ftp.msg. Below is an example of what such a file may look like:
NOTE
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Security Guide
NOTE
It is not necessary to begin each line of the file with 220 as specified in Section 4.4.1,
“Securing Services With TCP Wrappers and xinetd”.
To reference this greeting banner file for vsftpd, add the following directive to the
/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf file:
banner_file=/etc/banners/ftp.msg
It also is possible to send additional banners to incoming connections using TCP Wrappers as described
in Section 4.4.1.1, “TCP Wrappers and Connection Banners”.
The easiest way to create this directory is to install the vsftpd package. This package establishes a
directory tree for anonymous users and configures the permissions on directories to read-only for
anonymous users.
WARNING
To allow anonymous users to upload files, it is recommended that a write-only directory be created
within /var/ftp/pub/. To do this, enter the following command as root:
Next, change the permissions so that anonymous users cannot view the contents of the directory:
Administrators who allow anonymous users to read and write in directories often find that their servers
become a repository of stolen software.
Additionally, under vsftpd, add the following line to the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf file:
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anon_upload_enable=YES
Because FTP transmits unencrypted user names and passwords over insecure networks for
authentication, it is a good idea to deny system users access to the server from their user accounts.
To disable all user accounts in vsftpd, add the following directive to /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf:
local_enable=NO
To disable FTP access for specific accounts or specific groups of accounts, such as the root user and
those with sudo privileges, the easiest way is to use a PAM list file as described in Section 4.2.1,
“Disallowing Root Access”. The PAM configuration file for vsftpd is /etc/pam.d/vsftpd.
To disable specific user accounts in vsftpd, add the user name to /etc/vsftpd/ftpusers
Use TCP Wrappers to control access to either FTP daemon as outlined in Section 4.4.1, “Securing
Services With TCP Wrappers and xinetd”.
It is recommended that anyone planning to implement a Postfix server address the following issues.
Because of the nature of email, a determined attacker can flood the server with mail fairly easily and
cause a denial of service. The effectiveness of such attacks can be limited by setting limits of the
directives in the /etc/postfix/main.cf file. You can change the value of the directives which are already
there or you can add the directives you need with the value you want in the following format:
<directive> = <value>
. The following is a list of directives that can be used for limiting a denial of service attack:
anvil_rate_time_unit — This time unit is used for rate limit calculations. The default value is 60
seconds.
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default_process_limit — The default maximum number of Postfix child processes that provide
a given service. This limit can be overruled for specific services in the master.cf file. By default
the value is 100.
queue_minfree — The minimum amount of free space in bytes in the queue file system that is
needed to receive mail. This is currently used by the Postfix SMTP server to decide if it will
accept any mail at all. By default, the Postfix SMTP server rejects MAIL FROM commands when
the amount of free space is less than 1.5 times the message_size_limit. To specify a higher
minimum free space limit, specify a queue_minfree value that is at least 1.5 times the
message_size_limit. By default the queue_minfree value is 0.
header_size_limit — The maximum amount of memory in bytes for storing a message header. If
a header is larger, the excess is discarded. By default the value is 102400.
Never put the mail spool directory, /var/spool/postfix/, on an NFS shared volume. Because NFSv2 and
NFSv3 do not maintain control over user and group IDs, two or more users can have the same UID, and
receive and read each other's mail.
NOTE
With NFSv4 using Kerberos, this is not the case, since the SECRPC_GSS kernel module
does not utilize UID-based authentication. However, it is still considered good practice
not to put the mail spool directory on NFS shared volumes.
To help prevent local user exploits on the Postfix server, it is best for mail users to only access the
Postfix server using an email program. Shell accounts on the mail server should not be allowed and all
user shells in the /etc/passwd file should be set to /sbin/nologin (with the possible exception of the
root user).
By default, Postfix is set up to only listen to the local loopback address. You can verify this by viewing the
file /etc/postfix/main.cf.
View the file /etc/postfix/main.cf to ensure that only the following inet_interfaces line appears:
inet_interfaces = localhost
This ensures that Postfix only accepts mail messages (such as cron job reports) from the local system
and not from the network. This is the default setting and protects Postfix from a network attack.
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For removal of the localhost restriction and allowing Postfix to listen on all interfaces the
inet_interfaces = all setting can be used.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 version of Postfix can use the Dovecot or Cyrus SASL
implementations for SMTP Authentication (or SMTP AUTH). SMTP Authentication is an extension of the
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. When enabled, SMTP clients are required to authenticate to the SMTP
server using an authentication method supported and accepted by both the server and the client. This
section describes how to configure Postfix to make use of the Dovecot SASL implementation.
To install the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, and thus make the Dovecot SASL implementation available
on your system, issue the following command as the root user:
The Postfix SMTP server can communicate with the Dovecot SASL implementation using either a
UNIX-domain socket or a TCP socket. The latter method is only needed in case the Postfix and
Dovecot applications are running on separate machines. This guide gives preference to the UNIX-
domain socket method, which affords better privacy.
In order to instruct Postfix to use the Dovecot SASL implementation, a number of configuration
changes need to be performed for both applications. Follow the procedures below to effect these
changes.
Setting Up Dovecot
service auth {
unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
mode = 0660
user = postfix
group = postfix
}
}
The above example assumes the use of UNIX-domain sockets for communication between
Postfix and Dovecot. It also assumes default settings of the Postfix SMTP server, which
include the mail queue located in the /var/spool/postfix/ directory, and the application running
under the postfix user and group. In this way, read and write permissions are limited to the
postfix user and group.
Alternatively, you can use the following configuration to set up Dovecot to listen for Postfix
authentication requests through TCP:
service auth {
inet_listener {
port = 12345
}
}
In the above example, replace 12345 with the number of the port you want to use.
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Setting Up Postfix
In the case of Postfix, only the main configuration file, /etc/postfix/main.cf, needs to be modified. Add
or edit the following configuration directives:
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
2. Instruct Postfix to use the Dovecot SASL implementation for SMTP Authentication:
smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot
3. Provide the authentication path relative to the Postfix queue directory (note that the use of a
relative path ensures that the configuration works regardless of whether the Postfix server runs
in a chroot or not):
smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth
This step assumes that you want to use UNIX-domain sockets for communication between
Postfix and Dovecot. To configure Postfix to look for Dovecot on a different machine in case
you use TCP sockets for communication, use configuration values similar to the following:
smtpd_sasl_path = inet:127.0.0.1:12345
In the above example, 127.0.0.1 needs to be substituted by the IP address of the Dovecot
machine and 12345 by the port specified in Dovecot's /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf
configuration file.
4. Specify SASL mechanisms that the Postfix SMTP server makes available to clients. Note that
different mechanisms can be specified for encrypted and unencrypted sessions.
The above example specifies that during unencrypted sessions, no anonymous authentication is
allowed and no mechanisms that transmit unencrypted user names or passwords are allowed.
For encrypted sessions (using TLS), only non-anonymous authentication mechanisms are
allowed.
Additional Resources
The following online resources provide additional information useful for configuring Postfix SMTP
Authentication through SASL.
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IMPORTANT
This section draws attention to the most common ways of securing an SSH setup. By no
means should this list of suggested measures be considered exhaustive or definitive. See
sshd_config(5) for a description of all configuration directives available for modifying the
behavior of the sshd daemon and to ssh(1) for an explanation of basic SSH concepts.
SSH supports the use of cryptographic keys for logging in to computers. This is much more secure than
using only a password. If you combine this method with other authentication methods, it can be
considered a multi-factor authentication. See Section 4.3.11.2, “Multiple Authentication Methods” for
more information about using multiple authentication methods.
In order to enable the use of cryptographic keys for authentication, the PubkeyAuthentication
configuration directive in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file needs to be set to yes. Note that this is the
default setting. Set the PasswordAuthentication directive to no to disable the possibility of using
passwords for logging in.
SSH keys can be generated using the ssh-keygen command. If invoked without additional arguments,
it creates a 2048-bit RSA key set. The keys are stored, by default, in the ~/.ssh/ directory. You can
utilize the -b switch to modify the bit-strength of the key. Using 2048-bit keys is normally sufficient.
The Configuring OpenSSH chapter in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide
includes detailed information about generating key pairs.
You should see the two keys in your ~/.ssh/ directory. If you accepted the defaults when running the
ssh-keygen command, then the generated files are named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub and contain the
private and public key respectively. You should always protect the private key from exposure by making
it unreadable by anyone else but the file's owner. The public key, however, needs to be transferred to
the system you are going to log in to. You can use the ssh-copy-id command to transfer the key to the
server:
This command will also automatically append the public key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the
server. The sshd daemon will check this file when you attempt to log in to the server.
Similarly to passwords and any other authentication mechanism, you should change your SSH keys
regularly. When you do, make sure you remove any unused keys from the authorized_keys file.
Using multiple authentication methods, or multi-factor authentication, increases the level of protection
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against unauthorized access, and as such should be considered when hardening a system to prevent it
from being compromised. Users attempting to log in to a system that uses multi-factor authentication
must successfully complete all specified authentication methods in order to be granted access.
An sshd daemon configured using the above AuthenticationMethods directive only grants access if
the user attempting to log in successfully completes either publickey authentication followed by
gssapi-with-mic or by keyboard-interactive authentication. Note that each of the requested
authentication methods needs to be explicitly enabled using a corresponding configuration directive
(such as PubkeyAuthentication) in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. See the AUTHENTICATION section
of ssh(1) for a general list of available authentication methods.
Protocol Version
Even though the implementation of the SSH protocol supplied with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 still
supports both the SSH-1 and SSH-2 versions of the protocol for SSH clients, only the latter should be
used whenever possible. The SSH-2 version contains a number of improvements over the older SSH-1,
and the majority of advanced configuration options is only available when using SSH-2.
Red Hat recommends using SSH-2 to maximize the extent to which the SSH protocol protects the
authentication and communication for which it is used. The version or versions of the protocol
supported by the sshd daemon can be specified using the Protocol configuration directive in the
/etc/ssh/sshd_config file. The default setting is 2. Note that the SSH-2 version is the only version
supported by the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 SSH server.
Key Types
While the ssh-keygen command generates a pair of SSH-2 RSA keys by default, using the -t option, it
can be instructed to generate DSA or ECDSA keys as well. The ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature
Algorithm) offers better performance at the same equivalent symmetric key length. It also generates
shorter keys.
Non-Default Port
By default, the sshd daemon listens on TCP port 22. Changing the port reduces the exposure of the
system to attacks based on automated network scanning, thus increasing security through obscurity.
The port can be specified using the Port directive in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config configuration file. Note
also that the default SELinux policy must be changed to allow for the use of a non-default port. You can
do this by modifying the ssh_port_t SELinux type by typing the following command as root:
In the above command, replace port_number with the new port number specified using the Port
directive.
No Root Login
Provided that your particular use case does not require the possibility of logging in as the root user, you
should consider setting the PermitRootLogin configuration directive to no in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config
file. By disabling the possibility of logging in as the root user, the administrator can audit which user runs
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what privileged command after they log in as regular users and then gain root rights.
WARNING
Red Hat recommends not using X11 forwarding while connecting to untrusted hosts.
Before you can start using PostgreSQL, you must initialize a database storage area on disk. This is called
a database cluster. To initialize a database cluster, use the command initdb, which is installed with
PostgreSQL. The desired file system location of your database cluster is indicated by the -D option. For
example:
The initdb command will attempt to create the directory you specify if it does not already exist. We use
the name /home/postgresql/db1 in this example. The /home/postgresql/db1 directory contains all the
data stored in the database and also the client authentication configuration file:
The following line in the pg_hba.conf file allows any authenticated local users to access any databases
with their user names:
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This can be problematic when you use layered applications that create database users and no local
users. If you do not want to explicitly control all user names on the system, remove this line from the
pg_hba.conf file.
Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data, such as strings and
objects, from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering. Memcached allows applications to
take memory from parts of the system where it has more than it needs and make it accessible to areas
where applications have less than they need.
memcached Vulnerabilities
In 2018, vulnerabilities of DDoS amplification attacks by exploiting memcached servers exposed to the
public internet were discovered. These attacks take advantage of memcached communication using the
UDP protocol for transport. The attack is effective because of the high amplification ratio - a request
with the size of a few hundred bytes can generate a response of a few megabytes or even hundreds of
megabytes in size. This issue was assigned CVE-2018-1000115.
In most situations, the memcached service does not need to be exposed to the public Internet. Such
exposure may have their own security problems, allowing remote attackers to leak or modify information
stored in memcached.
Hardening memcached
To mitigate security risks, perform as many from the following steps as applicable for your configuration:
Configure a firewall in your LAN. If your memcached server should be accessible only from within
your local network, do not allow external traffic to ports used by memcached. For example,
remove the port 11211, which is used by memcached by default, from the list of allowed ports:
See Section 5.8, “Using Zones to Manage Incoming Traffic Depending on Source” for firewalld
commands that allow specific IP ranges to use the port 11211.
Disable UDP by adding the -U 0 -p 11211 value to the OPTIONS variable in the
/etc/sysconfig/memcached file unless your clients really need this protocol:
OPTIONS="-U 0 -p 11211"
If you use just a single memcached server on the same machine as your application, set up
memcached to listen to localhost traffic only. Add the -l 127.0.0.1,::1 value to OPTIONS in
/etc/sysconfig/memcached:
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OPTIONS="-l 127.0.0.1,::1"
If changing the authentication is possible, enable SASL (Simple Authentication and Security
Layer) authentication:
sasldb_path: /path.to/memcached.sasldb
3. Ensure the database is accessible for the memcached user and group.
OPTIONS="-S"
6. Add the user name and password created in the SASL database to the memcached client
configuration of your application.
Encrypt communication between memcached clients and servers with stunnel. Since
memcached does not support TLS, a workaround is to use a proxy, such as stunnel, which
provides TLS on top of the memcached protocol.
You could either configure stunnel to use PSK (Pre Shared Keys) or even better to use user
certificates. When using certificates, only authenticated users can reach your memcached
servers and your traffic is encrypted.
IMPORTANT
If you use a tunnel to access memcached, ensure that the service is either
listening only on localhost or a firewall prevents access from the network to the
memcached port.
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Displaying a suitable banner when users connect to a service is a good way to let potential attackers
know that the system administrator is being vigilant. You can also control what information about the
system is presented to users. To implement a TCP Wrappers banner for a service, use the banner
option.
This example implements a banner for vsftpd. To begin, create a banner file. It can be anywhere on the
system, but it must have same name as the daemon. For this example, the file is called
/etc/banners/vsftpd and contains the following lines:
220-Hello, %c
220-All activity on ftp.example.com is logged.
220-Inappropriate use will result in your access privileges being removed.
The %c token supplies a variety of client information, such as the user name and host name, or the user
name and IP address to make the connection even more intimidating.
For this banner to be displayed to incoming connections, add the following line to the /etc/hosts.allow
file:
If a particular host or network has been detected attacking the server, TCP Wrappers can be used to
warn the administrator of subsequent attacks from that host or network using the spawn directive.
In this example, assume that a cracker from the 206.182.68.0/24 network has been detected attempting
to attack the server. Place the following line in the /etc/hosts.deny file to deny any connection
attempts from that network, and to log the attempts to a special file:
The %d token supplies the name of the service that the attacker was trying to access.
To allow the connection and log it, place the spawn directive in the /etc/hosts.allow file.
NOTE
Because the spawn directive executes any shell command, it is a good idea to create a
special script to notify the administrator or execute a chain of commands in the event
that a particular client attempts to connect to the server.
If certain types of connections are of more concern than others, the log level can be elevated for that
service using the severity option.
For this example, assume that anyone attempting to connect to port 23 (the Telnet port) on an FTP
server is a cracker. To denote this, place an emerg flag in the log files instead of the default flag, info,
and deny the connection.
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This uses the default authpriv logging facility, but elevates the priority from the default value of info to
emerg, which posts log messages directly to the console.
Use the -l option of the netstat command to display only listening server sockets:
~]# ss -tlw
etid State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port
udp UNCONN 0 0 :::ipv6-icmp :::*
tcp LISTEN 0 128 *:sunrpc *:*
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Make a scan for every IP address shown in the ss output (except for localhost 127.0.0.0 or ::1 range)
from an external system. Use the -6 option for scanning an IPv6 address.
Proceed then to make external checks using the nmap tool from another remote machine connected
through the network to the first system. This can be used to verify rules in firewalld. The following is an
example to determine which ports are listening for TCP connections:
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The TCP connect scan (-sT) is the default TCP scan type when the TCP SYN scan (-sS) is not an option.
The -O option detects the operating system of the host.
See the ss(8), netstat(8), nmap(1), and services(5) manual pages for more information.
The accept_source_route option causes network interfaces to accept packets with the Strict Source
Routing (SSR) or Loose Source Routing (LSR) option set. The acceptance of source routed packets is
controlled by sysctl settings. Issue the following command as root to drop packets with the SSR or LSR
option set:
Disabling the forwarding of packets should also be done in conjunction with the above when possible
(disabling forwarding may interfere with virtualization). Issue the commands listed below as root:
These commands disable forwarding of IPv4 and IPv6 packets on all interfaces:
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Accepting ICMP redirects has few legitimate uses. Disable the acceptance and sending of ICMP
redirected packets unless specifically required.
These commands disable acceptance of all ICMP redirected packets on all interfaces:
This command disables acceptance of secure ICMP redirected packets on all interfaces:
This command disables acceptance of all IPv4 ICMP redirected packets on all interfaces:
IMPORTANT
There is only a directive to disable sending of IPv4 redirected packets. See RFC4294 for an explanation
of “IPv6 Node Requirements” which resulted in this difference between IPv4 and IPv6.
NOTE
To make these settings persistent across reboots, modify the /etc/sysctl.conf file. For
example, to disable acceptance of all IPv4 ICMP redirected packets on all interfaces,
open the /etc/sysctl.conf file with an editor running as the root user and add a line as
follows:
net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects=0
See the sysctl man page, sysctl(8), for more information. See RFC791 for an explanation of the Internet
options related to source based routing and its variants.
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WARNING
Ethernet networks provide additional ways to redirect traffic, such as ARP or MAC
address spoofing, unauthorized DHCP servers, and IPv6 router or neighbor
advertisements. In addition, unicast traffic is occasionally broadcast, causing
information leaks. These weaknesses can only be addressed by specific
countermeasures implemented by the network operator. Host-based
countermeasures are not fully effective.
Reverse Path Forwarding is used to prevent packets that arrived through one interface from leaving
through a different interface. When outgoing routes and incoming routes are different, it is sometimes
referred to as asymmetric routing. Routers often route packets this way, but most hosts should not need
to do this. Exceptions are such applications that involve sending traffic out over one link and receiving
traffic over another link from a different service provider. For example, using leased lines in combination
with xDSL or satellite links with 3G modems. If such a scenario is applicable to you, then turning off
reverse path forwarding on the incoming interface is necessary. In short, unless you know that it is
required, it is best enabled as it prevents users spoofing IP addresses from local subnets and reduces
the opportunity for DDoS attacks.
NOTE
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 defaults to using Strict Reverse Path Forwarding following the
Strict Reverse Path recommendation from RFC 3704, Ingress Filtering for Multihomed
Networks..
WARNING
rp_filter
Reverse Path Forwarding is enabled by means of the rp_filter directive. The sysctl utility can be
used to make changes to the running system, and permanent changes can be made by adding lines
to the /etc/sysctl.conf file. The rp_filter option is used to direct the kernel to select from one of
three modes.
sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter=integer
sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=integer
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0 — No source validation.
The setting can be overridden per network interface using the net.ipv4.conf.interface.rp_filter
command as follows:
sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.interface.rp_filter=integer
NOTE
To make these settings persistent across reboots, modify the /etc/sysctl.conf file. For
example, to change the mode for all interfaces, open the /etc/sysctl.conf file with an
editor running as the root user and add a line as follows:
net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=2
IPv6_rpfilter
In case of the IPv6 protocol the firewalld daemon applies to Reverse Path Forwarding by default.
The setting can be checked in the /etc/firewalld/firewalld.conf file. You can change the firewalld
behavior by setting the IPv6_rpfilter option.
If you need a custom configuration of Reverse Path Forwarding, you can perform it without the
firewalld daemon by using the ip6tables command as follows:
This rule should be inserted near the beginning of the raw/PREROUTING chain, so that it applies to
all traffic, in particular before the stateful matching rules. For more information about the iptables
and ip6tables services, see Section 5.13, “Setting and Controlling IP sets using iptables”.
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
To load the changes from the /etc/sysctl.conf file, enter the following command:
/sbin/sysctl -p
/sbin/sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward
If the above command returns a 1, then IP forwarding is enabled. If it returns a 0, then you can turn it on
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If the above command returns a 1, then IP forwarding is enabled. If it returns a 0, then you can turn it on
manually using the following command:
/sbin/sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
The following are resources which explain more about Reverse Path Forwarding.
Installed Documentation
Online Documentation
See RFC 3704 for an explanation of Ingress Filtering for Multihomed Networks.
Publishing DNSSEC information involves digitally signing DNS resource records as well as distributing
public keys in such a way as to enable DNS resolvers to build a hierarchical chain of trust. Digital
signatures for all DNS resource records are generated and added to the zone as digital signature
resource records (RRSIG). The public key of a zone is added as a DNSKEY resource record. To build the
hierarchical chain, hashes of the DNSKEY are published in the parent zone as Delegation of Signing (DS)
resource records. To facilitate proof of non-existence, the NextSECure (NSEC) and NSEC3 resource
records are used. In a DNSSEC signed zone, each resource record set (RRset) has a corresponding
RRSIG resource record. Note that records used for delegation to a child zone (NS and glue records) are
not signed; these records appear in the child zone and are signed there.
Processing DNSSEC information is done by resolvers that are configured with the root zone public key.
Using this key, resolvers can verify the signatures used in the root zone. For example, the root zone has
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signed the DS record for .com. The root zone also serves NS and glue records for the .com name
servers. The resolver follows this delegation and queries for the DNSKEY record of .com using these
delegated name servers. The hash of the DNSKEY record obtained should match the DS record in the
root zone. If so, the resolver will trust the obtained DNSKEY for .com. In the .com zone, the RRSIG
records are created by the .com DNSKEY. This process is repeated similarly for delegations within
.com, such as redhat.com. Using this method, a validating DNS resolver only needs to be configured
with one root key while it collects many DNSKEYs from around the world during its normal operation. If a
cryptographic check fails, the resolver will return SERVFAIL to the application.
DNSSEC has been designed in such a way that it will be completely invisible to applications not
supporting DNSSEC. If a non-DNSSEC application queries a DNSSEC capable resolver, it will receive
the answer without any of these new resource record types such as RRSIG. However, the DNSSEC
capable resolver will still perform all cryptographic checks, and will still return a SERVFAIL error to the
application if it detects malicious DNS answers. DNSSEC protects the integrity of the data between
DNS servers (authoritative and recursive), it does not provide security between the application and the
resolver. Therefore, it is important that the applications are given a secure transport to their resolver.
The easiest way to accomplish that is to run a DNSSEC capable resolver on localhost and use 127.0.0.1
in /etc/resolv.conf. Alternatively a VPN connection to a remote DNS server could be used.
Dnssec-trigger then performs a number of tests against the server and decides whether or not
it properly supports DNSSEC.
If it does, then dnssec-trigger reconfigures unbound to use that DNS server as a forwarder for
all queries.
If the tests fail, dnssec-trigger will ignore the new DNS server and try a few available fall-back
methods.
If it determines that an unrestricted port 53 (UDP and TCP) is available, it will tell unbound to
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If it determines that an unrestricted port 53 (UDP and TCP) is available, it will tell unbound to
become a full recursive DNS server without using any forwarder.
If this is not possible, for example because port 53 is blocked by a firewall for everything except
reaching the network's DNS server itself, it will try to use DNS to port 80, or TLS encapsulated
DNS to port 443. Servers running DNS on port 80 and 443 can be configured in /etc/dnssec-
trigger/dnssec-trigger.conf. Commented out examples should be available in the default
configuration file.
If these fall-back methods also fail, dnssec-trigger offers to either operate insecurely, which
would bypass DNSSEC completely, or run in “cache only” mode where it will not attempt new
DNS queries but will answer for everything it already has in the cache.
Wi-Fi Hotspots increasingly redirect users to a sign-on page before granting access to the Internet.
During the probing sequence outlined above, if a redirection is detected, the user is prompted to ask if a
login is required to gain Internet access. The dnssec-trigger daemon continues to probe for DNSSEC
resolvers every ten seconds. See Section 4.5.8, “Using Dnssec-trigger” for information on using the
dnssec-trigger graphical utility.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) sometimes adds previously
unregistered Top-Level Domains (such as .yourcompany) to the public register. Therefore, Red Hat
strongly recommends that you do not use a domain name that is not delegated to you, even on a private
network, as this can result in a domain name that resolves differently depending on network
configuration. As a result, network resources can become unavailable. Using domain names that are not
delegated to you also makes DNSSEC more difficult to deploy and maintain, as domain name collisions
require manual configuration to enable DNSSEC validation. See the ICANN FAQ on domain name
collision for more information on this issue.
In the context of DNSSEC, a trust anchor consists of a DNS name and public key (or hash of the public
key) associated with that name. It is expressed as a base 64 encoded key. It is similar to a certificate in
that it is a means of exchanging information, including a public key, which can be used to verify and
authenticate DNS records. RFC 4033 defines a trust anchor as a configured DNSKEY RR or DS RR hash
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of a DNSKEY RR. A validating security-aware resolver uses this public key or hash as a starting point for
building the authentication chain to a signed DNS response. In general, a validating resolver will have to
obtain the initial values of its trust anchors through some secure or trusted means outside the DNS
protocol. Presence of a trust anchor also implies that the resolver should expect the zone to which the
trust anchor points to be signed.
In order to validate DNS using DNSSEC locally on a machine, it is necessary to install the DNS resolver
unbound (or bind ). It is only necessary to install dnssec-trigger on mobile devices. For servers,
unbound should be sufficient although a forwarding configuration for the local domain might be
required depending on where the server is located (LAN or Internet). dnssec-trigger will currently only
help with the global public DNS zone. NetworkManager, dhclient, and VPN applications can often
gather the domain list (and nameserver list as well) automatically, but not dnssec-trigger nor unbound.
To determine whether the unbound daemon is running, enter the following command:
The systemctl status command will report unbound as Active: inactive (dead) if the unbound service
is not running.
To start the unbound daemon for the current session, enter the following command as the root user:
Run the systemctl enable command to ensure that unbound starts up every time the system boots:
The unbound daemon allows configuration of local data or overrides using the following directories:
The /etc/unbound/conf.d directory is used to add configurations for a specific domain name.
This is used to redirect queries for a domain name to a specific DNS server. This is often used
for sub-domains that only exist within a corporate WAN.
The /etc/unbound/keys.d directory is used to add trust anchors for a specific domain name.
This is required when an internal-only name is DNSSEC signed, but there is no publicly existing
DS record to build a path of trust. Another use case is when an internal version of a domain is
signed using a different DNSKEY than the publicly available name outside the corporate WAN.
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The /etc/unbound/local.d directory is used to add specific DNS data as a local override. This
can be used to build blacklists or create manual overrides. This data will be returned to clients by
unbound, but it will not be marked as DNSSEC signed.
NetworkManager, as well as some VPN software, may change the configuration dynamically. These
configuration directories contain commented out example entries. For further information see the
unbound.conf(5) man page.
The dnssec-trigger application runs as a daemon, dnssec-triggerd. To install dnssec-trigger enter the
following command as the root user:
The systemctl status command will report dnssec-triggerd as Active: inactive (dead) if the dnssec-
triggerd daemon is not running. To start it for the current session enter the following command as the
root user:
Run the systemctl enable command to ensure that dnssec-triggerd starts up every time the system
boots:
In normal operations unbound is used locally as the name server, and resolv.conf points to 127.0.0.1.
When you click OK on the Hotspot Sign-On panel this is changed. The DNS servers are queried from
NetworkManager and put in resolv.conf. Now you can authenticate on the Hotspot's sign-on page.
The anchor icon shows a big red exclamation mark to warn you that DNS queries are being made
insecurely. When authenticated, dnssec-trigger should automatically detect this and switch back to
secure mode, although in some cases it cannot and the user has to do this manually by selecting
Reprobe.
Dnssec-trigger does not normally require any user interaction. Once started, it works in the background
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Dnssec-trigger does not normally require any user interaction. Once started, it works in the background
and if a problem is encountered it notifies the user by means of a pop-up text box. It also informs
unbound about changes to the resolv.conf file.
To send a query requesting DNSSEC data using dig, the option +dnssec is added to the command, for
example:
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags: do; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;whitehouse.gov. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
whitehouse.gov. 20 IN A 72.246.36.110
whitehouse.gov. 20 IN RRSIG A 7 2 20 20130825124016 20130822114016 8399 whitehouse.gov.
BB8VHWEkIaKpaLprt3hq1GkjDROvkmjYTBxiGhuki/BJn3PoIGyrftxR
HH0377I0Lsybj/uZv5hL4UwWd/lw6Gn8GPikqhztAkgMxddMQ2IARP6p
wbMOKbSUuV6NGUT1WWwpbi+LelFMqQcAq3Se66iyH0Jem7HtgPEUE1Zc 3oI=
In addition to the A record, an RRSIG record is returned which contains the DNSSEC signature, as well as
the inception time and expiration time of the signature. The unbound server indicated that the data
was DNSSEC authenticated by returning the ad bit in the flags: section at the top.
If DNSSEC validation fails, the dig command would return a SERVFAIL error:
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;badsign-a.test.dnssec-tools.org. IN A
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To request more information about the failure, DNSSEC checking can be disabled by specifying the +cd
option to the dig command:
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags: do; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;badsign-a.test.dnssec-tools.org. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
badsign-a.test.dnssec-tools.org. 49 IN A 75.119.216.33
badsign-a.test.dnssec-tools.org. 49 IN RRSIG A 5 4 86400 20130919183720 20130820173720
19442 test.dnssec-tools.org.
E572dLKMvYB4cgTRyAHIKKEvdOP7tockQb7hXFNZKVbfXbZJOIDREJrr
zCgAfJ2hykfY0yJHAlnuQvM0s6xOnNBSvc2xLIybJdfTaN6kSR0YFdYZ
n2NpPctn2kUBn5UR1BJRin3Gqy20LZlZx2KD7cZBtieMsU/IunyhCSc0 kYw=
Often, DNSSEC mistakes manifest themselves by bad inception or expiration time, although in this
example, the people at www.dnssec-tools.org have mangled this RRSIG signature on purpose, which we
would not be able to detect by looking at this output manually. The error will show in the output of
systemctl status unbound and the unbound daemon logs these errors to syslog as follows:
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To set up a fixed web page with known content that can be used by dnssec-trigger to detect a Hotspot,
proceed as follows:
1. Set up a web server on some machine that is publicly reachable on the Internet. See the Web
Servers chapter in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide. .
2. Once you have the server running, publish a static page with known content on it. The page does
not need to be a valid HTML page. For example, you could use a plain-text file named
hotspot.txt that contains only the string OK. Assuming your server is located at example.com
and you published your hotspot.txt file in the web server document_root/static/ sub-directory,
then the address to your static web page would be example.com/static/hotspot.txt. See the
DocumentRoot directive in the Web Servers chapter in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System
Administrator's Guide.
This command adds a URL that is probed using HTTP (port 80). The first part is the URL that
will be resolved and the page that will be downloaded. The second part of the command is the
text string that the downloaded webpage is expected to contain.
For more information on the configuration options see the man page dnssec-trigger.conf(8).
The default behavior for validating forward zones can be altered, so that all forward zones will not be
DNSSEC validated by default. To do this, change the validate_connection_provided_zones variable in
the dnssec-trigger configuration file /etc/dnssec.conf. As root user, open and edit the line as follows:
validate_connection_provided_zones=no
The change is not done for any existing forward zones, but only for future forward zones. Therefore if
you want to disable DNSSEC for the current provided domain, you need to reconnect.
Adding forward zones for Wi-Fi provided zones can be enabled. To do this, change the
add_wifi_provided_zones variable in the dnssec-trigger configuration file, /etc/dnssec.conf. As root
user, open and edit the line as follows:
add_wifi_provided_zones=yes
The change is not done for any existing forward zones, but only for future forward zones. Therefore, if
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The change is not done for any existing forward zones, but only for future forward zones. Therefore, if
you want to enable DNSSEC for the current Wi-Fi provided domain, you need to reconnect (restart) the
Wi-Fi connection.
WARNING
Turning on the addition of Wi-Fi provided domains as forward zones into unbound
may have security implications such as:
1. A Wi-Fi access point can intentionally provide you a domain through DHCP
for which it does not have authority and route all your DNS queries to its
DNS servers.
2. If you have the DNSSEC validation of forward zones turned off, the Wi-Fi
provided DNS servers can spoof the IP address for domain names from the
provided domain without you knowing it.
unbound(8) man page — Describes the command options for unbound, the DNS validating
resolver.
resolv.conf(5) man page — Contains information that is read by the resolver routines.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4033
RFC 4033 DNS Security Introduction and Requirements.
http://www.dnssec.net/
A website with links to many DNSSEC resources.
http://www.dnssec-deployment.org/
The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative, sponsored by the Department for Homeland Security, contains
a lot of DNSSEC information and has a mailing list to discuss DNSSEC deployment issues.
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/dnssec/community/
The Internet Society's “Deploy 360” initiative to stimulate and coordinate DNSSEC deployment is a
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The Internet Society's “Deploy 360” initiative to stimulate and coordinate DNSSEC deployment is a
good resource for finding communities and DNSSEC activities worldwide.
http://www.unbound.net/
This document contains general information about the unbound DNS service.
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/dnssec-trigger/
This document contains general information about dnssec-trigger.
The IPsec protocol for VPN is itself configured using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol. The
terms IPsec and IKE are used interchangeably. An IPsec VPN is also called an IKE VPN, IKEv2 VPN,
XAUTH VPN, Cisco VPN or IKE/IPsec VPN. A variant of an IPsec VPN that also uses the Level 2
Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is usually called an L2TP/IPsec VPN, which requires the Optional channel
xl2tpd application.
Libreswan is an open-source, user-space IKE implementation available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
IKE version 1 and 2 are implemented as a user-level daemon. The IKE protocol itself is also encrypted.
The IPsec protocol is implemented by the Linux kernel and Libreswan configures the kernel to add and
remove VPN tunnel configurations.
The IKE protocol uses UDP port 500 and 4500. The IPsec protocol consists of two different protocols,
Encapsulated Security Payload (ESP) which has protocol number 50, and Authenticated Header (AH)
which as protocol number 51. The AH protocol is not recommended for use. Users of AH are
recommended to migrate to ESP with null encryption.
The IPsec protocol has two different modes of operation, Tunnel Mode (the default) and Transport
Mode. It is possible to configure the kernel with IPsec without IKE. This is called Manual Keying. It is
possible to configure manual keying using the ip xfrm commands, however, this is strongly discouraged
for security reasons. Libreswan interfaces with the Linux kernel using netlink. Packet encryption and
decryption happen in the Linux kernel.
Libreswan uses the Network Security Services (NSS) cryptographic library. Both libreswan and NSS are
certified for use with the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 140-2.
IMPORTANT
IKE/IPsec VPNs, implemented by Libreswan and the Linux kernel, is the only VPN
technology recommended for use in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Do not use any other
VPN technology without understanding the risks of doing so.
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After a new installation of Libreswan, the NSS database should be initialized as part of the installation
process. Before you start a new database, remove the old database as follows:
Then, to initialize a new NSS database, enter the following command as root:
Only when operating in FIPS mode, it is necessary to protect the NSS database with a password. To
initialize the database for FIPS mode, instead of the previous command, use:
To start the ipsec daemon provided by Libreswan, issue the following command as root:
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To ensure that Libreswan will start when the system starts, issue the following command as root:
Configure any intermediate as well as host-based firewalls to permit the ipsec service. See Chapter 5,
Using Firewalls for information on firewalls and allowing specific services to pass through. Libreswan
requires the firewall to allow the following packets:
UDP port 500 and 4500 for the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol
We present three examples of using Libreswan to set up an IPsec VPN. The first example is for
connecting two hosts together so that they may communicate securely. The second example is
connecting two sites together to form one network. The third example is supporting remote users,
known as road warriors in this context.
Pre-Shared Keys (PSK) is the simplest authentication method. PSKs should consist of random
characters and have a length of at least 20 characters. In FIPS mode, PSKs need to comply to a
minimum strength requirement depending on the integrity algorithm used. It is recommended
not to use PSKs shorter than 64 random characters.
Raw RSA keys are commonly used for static host-to-host or subnet-to-subnet IPsec
configurations. The hosts are manually configured with each other's public RSA key. This
method does not scale well when dozens or more hosts all need to setup IPsec tunnels to each
other.
X.509 certificates are commonly used for large-scale deployments where there are many hosts
that need to connect to a common IPsec gateway. A central certificate authority (CA) is used to
sign RSA certificates for hosts or users. This central CA is responsible for relaying trust,
including the revocations of individual hosts or users.
NULL Authentication is used to gain mesh encryption without authentication. It protects against
passive attacks but does not protect against active attacks. However, since IKEv2 allows
asymmetrical authentication methods, NULL Authentication can also be used for internet scale
Opportunistic IPsec, where clients authenticate the server, but servers do not authenticate the
client. This model is similar to secure websites using TLS (also known as https:// websites).
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This generates an RSA key pair for the host. The process of generating RSA keys can take many
minutes, especially on virtual machines with low entropy.
To view the host public key so it can be specified in a configuration as the “left” side, issue the following
command as root on the host where the new hostkey was added, using the CKAID returned by the
“newhostkey” command:
leftrsasigkey=0sAQPFKElpV2GdCF0Ux9Kqhcap53Kaa+uCgduoT2I3x6LkRK8N+GiVGkRH4Xg+WMrz
Rb94kDDD8m/BO/Md+A30u0NjDk724jWuUU215rnpwvbdAob8pxYc4ReSgjQ/DkqQvsemoeF4kimMU1
OBPNU7lBw4hTBFzu+iVUYMELwQSXpremLXHBNIamUbe5R1+ibgxO19l/PAbZwxyGX/ueBMBvSQ+H
0UqdGKbq7UgSEQTFa4/gqdYZDDzx55tpZk2Z3es+EWdURwJOgGiiiIFuBagasHFpeu9Teb1VzRyytny
NiJCBVhWVqsB4h6eaQ9RpAMmqBdBeNHfXwb6/hg+JIKJgjidXvGtgWBYNDpG40fEFh9USaFlSdiHO+
dmGyZQ74Rg9sWLtiVdlH1YEBUtQb8f8FVry9wSn6AZqPlpGgUdtkTYUCaaifsYH4hoIA0nku4Fy/Ugej8
9ZdrSN7Lt+igns4FysMmBOl9Wi9+LWnfl+dm4Nc6UNgLE8kZc+8vMJGkLi4SYjk2/MFYgqGX/COxSCPB
FUZFiNK7Wda0kWea/FqE1heem7rvKAPIiqMymjSmytZI9hhkCD16pCdgrO3fJXsfAUChYYSPyPQClkav
vBL/wNK9zlaOwssTaKTj4Xn90SrZaxTEjpqUeQ==
You will need this key to add to the configuration file on both hosts as explained below. If you forgot the
CKAID, you can obtain a list of all host keys on a machine using:
The secret part of the keypair is stored inside the “NSS database” which resides in /etc/ipsec.d/*.db.
To make a configuration file for this host-to-host tunnel, the lines leftrsasigkey= and rightrsasigkey=
from above are added to a custom configuration file placed in the /etc/ipsec.d/ directory.
Using an editor running as root, create a file with a suitable name in the following format:
/etc/ipsec.d/my_host-to-host.conf
conn mytunnel
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[email protected]
left=192.1.2.23
leftrsasigkey=0sAQOrlo+hOafUZDlCQmXFrje/oZm [...] W2n417C/4urYHQkCvuIQ==
[email protected]
right=192.1.2.45
rightrsasigkey=0sAQO3fwC6nSSGgt64DWiYZzuHbc4 [...] D/v8t5YTQ==
authby=rsasig
# load and initiate automatically
auto=start
Public keys can also be configured by their CKAID instead of by their RSAID. In that case use “leftckaid=”
instead of “leftrsasigkey=”
You can use the identical configuration file on both left and right hosts. Libreswan automatically detects
if it is “left” or “right” based on the specified IP addresses or hostnames. If one of the hosts is a mobile
host, which implies the IP address is not known in advance, then on the mobile client use %defaultroute
as its IP address. This will pick up the dynamic IP address automatically. On the static server host that
accepts connections from incoming mobile hosts, specify the mobile host using %any for its IP address.
Ensure the leftrsasigkey value is obtained from the “left” host and the rightrsasigkey value is obtained
from the “right” host. The same applies when using leftckaid and rightckaid.
Restart ipsec to ensure it reads the new configuration and if configured to start on boot, to confirm that
the tunnels establish:
When using the auto=start option, the IPsec tunnel should be established within a few seconds. You can
manually load and start the tunnel by entering the following commands as root:
The IKE negotiation takes place on UDP ports 500 and 4500. IPsec packets show up as Encapsulated
Security Payload (ESP) packets. The ESP protocol has no ports. When the VPN connection needs to
pass through a NAT router, the ESP packets are encapsulated in UDP packets on port 4500.
To verify that packets are being sent through the VPN tunnel, issue a command as root in the following
format:
~]# tcpdump -n -i interface esp or udp port 500 or udp port 4500
00:32:32.632165 IP 192.1.2.45 > 192.1.2.23: ESP(spi=0x63ad7e17,seq=0x1a), length 132
00:32:32.632592 IP 192.1.2.23 > 192.1.2.45: ESP(spi=0x4841b647,seq=0x1a), length 132
00:32:32.632592 IP 192.0.2.254 > 192.0.1.254: ICMP echo reply, id 2489, seq 7, length 64
00:32:33.632221 IP 192.1.2.45 > 192.1.2.23: ESP(spi=0x63ad7e17,seq=0x1b), length 132
00:32:33.632731 IP 192.1.2.23 > 192.1.2.45: ESP(spi=0x4841b647,seq=0x1b), length 132
00:32:33.632731 IP 192.0.2.254 > 192.0.1.254: ICMP echo reply, id 2489, seq 8, length 64
00:32:34.632183 IP 192.1.2.45 > 192.1.2.23: ESP(spi=0x63ad7e17,seq=0x1c), length 132
00:32:34.632607 IP 192.1.2.23 > 192.1.2.45: ESP(spi=0x4841b647,seq=0x1c), length 132
00:32:34.632607 IP 192.0.2.254 > 192.0.1.254: ICMP echo reply, id 2489, seq 9, length 64
00:32:35.632233 IP 192.1.2.45 > 192.1.2.23: ESP(spi=0x63ad7e17,seq=0x1d), length 132
00:32:35.632685 IP 192.1.2.23 > 192.1.2.45: ESP(spi=0x4841b647,seq=0x1d), length 132
00:32:35.632685 IP 192.0.2.254 > 192.0.1.254: ICMP echo reply, id 2489, seq 10, length 64
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Where interface is the interface known to carry the traffic. To end the capture with tcpdump, press
Ctrl+C.
NOTE
The tcpdump command interacts a little unexpectedly with IPsec. It only sees the
outgoing encrypted packet, not the outgoing plaintext packet. It does see the encrypted
incoming packet, as well as the decrypted incoming packet. If possible, run tcpdump on a
router between the two machines and not on one of the endpoints itself. When using the
Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI), tcpdump on the physical interface shows ESP packets,
while tcpdump on the VTI interface shows the cleartext traffic.
Another easy way to see if a tunnel is up, and additionally see how much traffic has gone through the
tunnel, issue the following command as root:
To configure Libreswan to create a site-to-site IPsec VPN, first configure a host-to-host IPsec VPN
as described in Section 4.6.3, “Creating Host-To-Host VPN Using Libreswan” and then copy or move
the file to a file with a suitable name, such as /etc/ipsec.d/my_site-to-site.conf. Using an editor running
as root, edit the custom configuration file /etc/ipsec.d/my_site-to-site.conf as follows:
conn mysubnet
also=mytunnel
leftsubnet=192.0.1.0/24
rightsubnet=192.0.2.0/24
auto=start
conn mysubnet6
also=mytunnel
connaddrfamily=ipv6
leftsubnet=2001:db8:0:1::/64
rightsubnet=2001:db8:0:2::/64
auto=start
conn mytunnel
[email protected]
left=192.1.2.23
leftrsasigkey=0sAQOrlo+hOafUZDlCQmXFrje/oZm [...] W2n417C/4urYHQkCvuIQ==
[email protected]
right=192.1.2.45
rightrsasigkey=0sAQO3fwC6nSSGgt64DWiYZzuHbc4 [...] D/v8t5YTQ==
authby=rsasig
To bring the tunnels up, restart Libreswan or manually load and initiate all the connections using the
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To bring the tunnels up, restart Libreswan or manually load and initiate all the connections using the
following commands as root:
Verifying that packets are being sent through the VPN tunnel is the same procedure as explained in
Section 4.6.3.1, “Verifying Host-To-Host VPN Using Libreswan” .
conn mysubnet
[email protected]
leftrsasigkey=0sAQOrlo+hOafUZDlCQmXFrje/oZm [...] W2n417C/4urYHQkCvuIQ==
left=192.1.2.23
leftsourceip=192.0.1.254
leftsubnet=192.0.1.0/24
[email protected]
rightrsasigkey=0sAQO3fwC6nSSGgt64DWiYZzuHbc4 [...] D/v8t5YTQ==
right=192.1.2.45
rightsourceip=192.0.2.254
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rightsubnet=192.0.2.0/24
auto=start
authby=rsasig
In the following example, we configure the head office with 10.0.0.0/8 and two branches that use a
smaller /24 subnet.
conn branch1
left=1.2.3.4
leftid=@headoffice
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
leftrsasigkey=0sA[...]
#
right=5.6.7.8
rightid=@branch1
rightsubnet=10.0.1.0/24
rightrsasigkey=0sAXXXX[...]
#
auto=start
authby=rsasig
conn branch2
left=1.2.3.4
leftid=@headoffice
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
leftrsasigkey=0sA[...]
#
right=10.11.12.13
rightid=@branch2
rightsubnet=10.0.2.0/24
rightrsasigkey=0sAYYYY[...]
#
auto=start
authby=rsasig
At the “branch1” office, we use the same connection. Additionally, we use a pass-through connection
to exclude our local LAN traffic from being sent through the tunnel:
conn branch1
left=1.2.3.4
leftid=@headoffice
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
leftrsasigkey=0sA[...]
#
right=10.11.12.13
rightid=@branch2
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rightsubnet=10.0.1.0/24
rightrsasigkey=0sAYYYY[...]
#
auto=start
authby=rsasig
conn passthrough
left=1.2.3.4
right=0.0.0.0
leftsubnet=10.0.1.0/24
rightsubnet=10.0.1.0/24
authby=never
type=passthrough
auto=route
On the server:
conn roadwarriors
ikev2=insist
# Support (roaming) MOBIKE clients (RFC 4555)
mobike=yes
fragmentation=yes
left=1.2.3.4
# if access to the LAN is given, enable this, otherwise use 0.0.0.0/0
# leftsubnet=10.10.0.0/16
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
leftcert=gw.example.com
leftid=%fromcert
leftxauthserver=yes
leftmodecfgserver=yes
right=%any
# trust our own Certificate Agency
rightca=%same
# pick an IP address pool to assign to remote users
# 100.64.0.0/16 prevents RFC1918 clashes when remote users are behind NAT
rightaddresspool=100.64.13.100-100.64.13.254
# if you want remote clients to use some local DNS zones and servers
modecfgdns="1.2.3.4, 5.6.7.8"
modecfgdomains="internal.company.com, corp"
rightxauthclient=yes
rightmodecfgclient=yes
authby=rsasig
# optionally, run the client X.509 ID through pam to allow/deny client
# pam-authorize=yes
# load connection, don't initiate
auto=add
# kill vanished roadwarriors
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dpddelay=1m
dpdtimeout=5m
dpdaction=%clear
On the mobile client, the road warrior's device, use a slight variation of the previous configuration:
conn to-vpn-server
ikev2=insist
# pick up our dynamic IP
left=%defaultroute
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
leftcert=myname.example.com
leftid=%fromcert
leftmodecfgclient=yes
# right can also be a DNS hostname
right=1.2.3.4
# if access to the remote LAN is required, enable this, otherwise use 0.0.0.0/0
# rightsubnet=10.10.0.0/16
rightsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
# trust our own Certificate Agency
rightca=%same
authby=rsasig
# allow narrowing to the server’s suggested assigned IP and remote subnet
narrowing=yes
# Support (roaming) MOBIKE clients (RFC 4555)
mobike=yes
# Initiate connection
auto=start
4.6.8. Configuring IKEv1 Remote Access VPN Libreswan and XAUTH with X.509
Libreswan offers a method to natively assign IP address and DNS information to roaming VPN clients as
the connection is established by using the XAUTH IPsec extension. XAUTH can be deployed using PSK
or X.509 certificates. Deploying using X.509 is more secure. Client certificates can be revoked by a
certificate revocation list or by Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP). With X.509 certificates,
individual clients cannot impersonate the server. With a PSK, also called Group Password, this is
theoretically possible.
XAUTH requires the VPN client to additionally identify itself with a user name and password. For One
time Passwords (OTP), such as Google Authenticator or RSA SecureID tokens, the one-time token is
appended to the user password.
xauthby=pam
This uses the configuration in /etc/pam.d/pluto to authenticate the user. Pam can be configured to
use various back ends by itself. It can use the system account user-password scheme, an LDAP
directory, a RADIUS server or a custom password authentication module.
xauthby=file
This uses the /etc/ipsec.d/passwd configuration file (it should not be confused with the
/etc/ipsec.d/nsspassword file). The format of this file is similar to the Apache .htpasswd file and
the Apache htpasswd command can be used to create entries in this file. However, after the user
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name and password, a third column is required with the connection name of the IPsec connection
used, for example when using a conn remoteusers to offer VPN to remove users, a password file
entry should look as follows:
user1:$apr1$MIwQ3DHb$1I69LzTnZhnCT2DPQmAOK.:remoteusers
NOTE
When using the htpasswd command, the connection name has to be manually added
after the user:password part on each line.
xauthby=alwaysok
The server always pretends the XAUTH user and password combination is correct. The client still has
to specify a user name and a password, although the server ignores these. This should only be used
when users are already identified by X.509 certificates, or when testing the VPN without needing an
XAUTH back end.
conn xauth-rsa
ikev2=never
auto=add
authby=rsasig
pfs=no
rekey=no
left=ServerIP
leftcert=vpn.example.com
#leftid=%fromcert
leftid=vpn.example.com
leftsendcert=always
leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
rightaddresspool=10.234.123.2-10.234.123.254
right=%any
rightrsasigkey=%cert
modecfgdns1=1.2.3.4
modecfgdns2=8.8.8.8
modecfgdomain=example.com
modecfgbanner="Authorized Access is allowed"
leftxauthserver=yes
rightxauthclient=yes
leftmodecfgserver=yes
rightmodecfgclient=yes
modecfgpull=yes
xauthby=pam
dpddelay=30
dpdtimeout=120
dpdaction=clear
ike_frag=yes
# for walled-garden on xauth failure
# xauthfail=soft
# leftupdown=/custom/_updown
When xauthfail is set to soft, instead of hard, authentication failures are ignored, and the VPN is setup
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When xauthfail is set to soft, instead of hard, authentication failures are ignored, and the VPN is setup
as if the user authenticated properly. A custom updown script can be used to check for the environment
variable XAUTH_FAILED. Such users can then be redirected, for example, using iptables DNAT, to a
“walled garden” where they can contact the administrator or renew a paid subscription to the service.
VPN clients use the modecfgdomain value and the DNS entries to redirect queries for the specified
domain to these specified nameservers. This allows roaming users to access internal-only resources
using the internal DNS names. Note while IKEv2 supports a comma seperated list of domain names and
nameserver IP addresses using modecfgdomains and modecfgdns, the IKEv1 protocol only supports
one domain name, and libreswan only supports up to two nameserver IP addresses.
If leftsubnet is not 0.0.0.0/0, split tunneling configuration requests are sent automatically to the client.
For example, when using leftsubnet=10.0.0.0/8, the VPN client would only send traffic for 10.0.0.0/8
through the VPN.
To enable optional PPK support, add ppk=yes to the connection definition. To require PPK, add
ppk=insist. Then, each client can be given a PPK ID with a secret value that is communicated out-of-
band (and preferably quantum safe). The PPK's should be very strong in randomness and not be based
on dictionary words. The PPK ID and PPK data itself are stored in ipsec.secrets, for example:
The PPKS option refers to static PPKs. There is an experimental function to use one-time-pad based
Dynamic PPKs. Upon each connection, a new part of a onetime pad is used as the PPK. When used, that
part of the dynamic PPK inside the file is overwritten with zeroes to prevent re-use. If there is no more
one time pad material left, the connection fails. See the ipsec.secrets(5) man page for more
information.
WARNING
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ipsec_auto(8) man page — Describes the use of the auto command line client for manipulating
Libreswan IPsec connections established using automatic exchanges of keys.
ipsec_rsasigkey(8) man page — Describes the tool used to generate RSA signature keys.
/usr/share/doc/libreswan-version/
https://libreswan.org
The website of the upstream project.
https://libreswan.org/wiki
The Libreswan Project Wiki.
https://libreswan.org/man/
All Libreswan man pages.
The openssl command line utility has a number of pseudo-commands to provide information on the
commands that the version of openssl installed on the system supports. The pseudo-commands list-
standard-commands, list-message-digest-commands, and list-cipher-commands output a list of all
standard commands, message digest commands, or cipher commands, respectively, that are available in
the present openssl utility.
rsa_keygen_bits:numbits — The number of bits in the generated key. If not specified 1024 is
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rsa_keygen_bits:numbits — The number of bits in the generated key. If not specified 1024 is
used.
rsa_keygen_pubexp:value — The RSA public exponent value. This can be a large decimal
value, or a hexadecimal value if preceded by 0x. The default value is 65537.
For example, to create a 2048 bit RSA private key using 3 as the public exponent, issue the following
command:
~]$ openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -out privkey.pem -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 \ -pkeyopt
rsa_keygen_pubexp:3
To encrypt the private key as it is output using 128 bit AES and the passphrase “hello”, issue the
following command:
~]$ openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -out privkey.pem -aes-128-cbc -pass pass:hello
To have a certificate signed by a certificate authority (CA), it is necessary to generate a certificate and
then send it to a CA for signing. This is referred to as a certificate signing request. See Section 4.7.2.1,
“Creating a Certificate Signing Request” for more information. The alternative is to create a self-signed
certificate. See Section 4.7.2.2, “Creating a Self-signed Certificate” for more information.
To create a certificate for submission to a CA, issue a command in the following format:
This will create an X.509 certificate called cert.csr encoded in the default privacy-enhanced electronic
mail (PEM) format. The name PEM is derived from “Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail”
described in RFC 1424. To generate a certificate file in the alternative DER format, use the -outform
DER command option.
After issuing the above command, you will be prompted for information about you and the organization
in order to create a distinguished name (DN) for the certificate. You will need the following information:
City or Town
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The req(1) man page describes the PKCS# 10 certificate request and generating utility. Default settings
used in the certificate creating process are contained within the /etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf file. See man
openssl.cnf(5) for more information.
To generate a self-signed certificate, valid for 366 days, issue a command in the following format:
~]$ openssl req -new -x509 -key privkey.pem -out selfcert.pem -days 366
The /etc/pki/tls/certs/ directory contains a Makefile which can be used to create certificates using the
make command. To view the usage instructions, issue a command as follows:
Alternatively, change to the directory and issue the make command as follows:
~]$ cd /etc/pki/tls/certs/
~]$ make
To verify multiple individual X.509 certificates in PEM format, issue a command in the following format:
To verify a certificate chain the leaf certificate must be in cert.pem and the intermediate certificates
which you do not trust must be directly concatenated in untrusted.pem. The trusted root CA certificate
must be either among the default CA listed in /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt or in a cacert.pem file.
Then, to verify the chain, issue a command in the following format:
IMPORTANT
Verification of signatures using the MD5 hash algorithm is disabled in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 due to insufficient strength of this algorithm. Always use strong algorithms such
as SHA256.
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The default format for keys and certificates is PEM. If required, use the -keyform DER option to specify
the DER key format.
~]$ openssl pkeyutl -in plaintext -out cyphertext -inkey privkey.pem -engine id
Where id is the ID of the cryptographic engine. To check the availability of an engine, issue the following
command:
~]$ openssl pkeyutl -sign -in plaintext -out sigtext -inkey privkey.pem
To verify a signed data file and to extract the data, issue a command as follows:
To verify the signature, for example using a DSA key, issue a command as follows:
~]$ openssl pkeyutl -verify -in file -sigfile sig -inkey key.pem
The pkeyutl(1) manual page describes the public key algorithm utility.
To specify an algorithm, use its name as an option. For example, to use the aes-128-cbc algorithm, use
the following syntax:
To encrypt a file called plaintext using the aes-128-cbc algorithm, enter the following command:
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To decrypt the file obtained in the previous example, use the -d option as in the following example:
IMPORTANT
The enc command does not properly support AEAD ciphers, and the ecb mode is not
considered secure. For best results, do not use other modes than cbc, cfb, ofb, or ctr.
To produce a message digest in the default Hex format using the sha1 algorithm, issue the following
command:
To digitally sign the digest, using a private key privekey.pem, issue the following command:
To compute the hash of a password from standard input, using the MD5 based BSD algorithm 1, issue a
command as follows:
The -apr1 option specifies the Apache variant of the BSD algorithm.
To compute the hash of a password stored in a file, and using a salt xx, issue a command as follows:
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The password is sent to standard output and there is no -out option to specify an output file. The -table
will generate a table of password hashes with their corresponding clear text password.
Multiple files for seeding the random data process can be specified using the colon, :, as a list separator.
where algorithm is one of the supported algorithms you intended to use. To list the available algorithms,
type openssl speed and then press tab.
Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile
Updates to the Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation
List (CRL) Profile
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1. You need a valid certificate for stunnel regardless of what service you use it with. If you do not
have a suitable certificate, you can apply to a Certificate Authority to obtain one, or you can
create a self-signed certificate.
WARNING
See Section 4.7.2.1, “Creating a Certificate Signing Request” for more information about
certificates granted by a Certificate Authority. On the other hand, to create a self-signed
certificate for stunnel, enter the /etc/pki/tls/certs/ directory and type the following command
as root:
2. When you have a certificate, create a configuration file for stunnel. It is a text file in which every
line specifies an option or the beginning of a service definition. You can also keep comments
and empty lines in the file to improve its legibility, where comments start with a semicolon.
The stunnel RPM package contains the /etc/stunnel/ directory, in which you can store the
configuration file. Although stunnel does not require any special format of the file name or its
extension, use /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf. The following content configures stunnel as a TLS
wrapper:
cert = /etc/pki/tls/certs/stunnel.pem
; Allow only TLS, thus avoiding SSL
sslVersion = TLSv1
chroot = /var/run/stunnel
setuid = nobody
setgid = nobody
pid = /stunnel.pid
socket = l:TCP_NODELAY=1
socket = r:TCP_NODELAY=1
[service_name]
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accept = port
connect = port
TIMEOUTclose = 0
Alternatively, you can avoid SSL by replacing the line containing sslVersion = TLSv1 with the
following lines:
options = NO_SSLv2
options = NO_SSLv3
sslVersion — the version of SSL; note that you can use TLS here even though SSL and TLS
are two independent cryptographic protocols
chroot — the changed root directory in which the stunnel process runs, for greater security
setuid, setgid — the user and group that the stunnel process runs as; nobody is a
restricted system account
pid — the file in which stunnel saves its process ID, relative to chroot
socket — local and remote socket options; in this case, disable Nagle's algorithm to improve
network latency
[service_name] — the beginning of the service definition; the options used below this line
apply to the given service only, whereas the options above affect stunnel globally
connect — the port to connect to; this must be the port that the service you are securing
uses
TIMEOUTclose — how many seconds to wait for the close_notify alert from the client; 0
instructs stunnel not to wait at all
To configure stunnel as a TLS wrapper for CUPS, use the following values:
[cups]
accept = 632
connect = 631
Instead of 632, you can use any free port that you prefer. 631 is the port that CUPS normally
uses.
3. Create the chroot directory and give the user specified by the setuid option write access to it.
To do so, enter the following commands as root:
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4. If your system is using firewall settings that disallow access to the new port, change them
accordingly. See Section 5.6.7, “Opening Ports using GUI” for details.
5. When you have created the configuration file and the chroot directory, and when you are sure
that the specified port is accessible, you are ready to start using stunnel.
To terminate stunnel, kill the process by running the following command as root:
If you edit the configuration file while stunnel is running, terminate stunnel and start it again for your
changes to take effect.
4.9. ENCRYPTION
Overview of LUKS
LUKS encrypts entire block devices and is therefore well-suited for protecting the contents
of mobile devices such as removable storage media or laptop disk drives.
The underlying contents of the encrypted block device are arbitrary. This makes it useful for
encrypting swap devices. This can also be useful with certain databases that use specially
formatted block devices for data storage.
LUKS devices contain multiple key slots, allowing users to add backup keys or passphrases.
LUKS is not well-suited for applications requiring many (more than eight) users to have
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LUKS is not well-suited for applications requiring many (more than eight) users to have
distinct access keys to the same device.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 utilizes LUKS to perform file system encryption. By default, the option to
encrypt the file system is unchecked during the installation. If you select the option to encrypt your hard
drive, you will be prompted for a passphrase that will be asked every time you boot the computer. This
passphrase "unlocks" the bulk encryption key that is used to decrypt your partition. If you choose to
modify the default partition table you can choose which partitions you want to encrypt. This is set in the
partition table settings.
The default cipher used for LUKS (see cryptsetup --help) is aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 (ESSIV - Encrypted
Salt-Sector Initialization Vector). Note that the installation program, Anaconda, uses by default XTS
mode (aes-xts-plain64). The default key size for LUKS is 256 bits. The default key size for LUKS with
Anaconda (XTS mode) is 512 bits. Ciphers that are available are:
Serpent
WARNING
Following this procedure will remove all data on the partition that you are
encrypting. You WILL lose all your information! Make sure you backup your data to
an external source before beginning this procedure!
telinit 1
umount /home
3. If the command in the previous step fails, use fuser to find processes hogging /home and kill
them:
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This command proceeds at the sequential write speed of your device and may take some time
to complete. It is an important step to ensure no unencrypted data is left on a used device, and
to obfuscate the parts of the device that contain encrypted data as opposed to just random
data.
mkfs.ext3 /dev/mapper/home
df -h | grep home
13. Edit the /etc/fstab file, removing the old entry for /home and adding the following line:
/sbin/restorecon -v -R /home
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shutdown -r now
16. The entry in the /etc/crypttab makes your computer ask your luks passphrase on boot.
You now have an encrypted partition for all of your data to safely rest while the computer is off.
After being prompted for any one of the existing passprases for authentication, you will be prompted to
enter the new passphrase.
You will be prompted for the passphrase you want to remove and then for any one of the remaining
passphrases for authentication.
You can create encrypted devices during system installation. This allows you to easily configure a
system with encrypted partitions.
To enable block device encryption, check the Encrypt System check box when selecting automatic
partitioning or the Encrypt check box when creating an individual partition, software RAID array, or
logical volume. After you finish partitioning, you will be prompted for an encryption passphrase. This
passphrase will be required to access the encrypted devices. If you have pre-existing LUKS devices and
provided correct passphrases for them earlier in the install process the passphrase entry dialog will also
contain a check box. Checking this check box indicates that you would like the new passphrase to be
added to an available slot in each of the pre-existing encrypted block devices.
NOTE
Checking the Encrypt System check box on the Automatic Partitioning screen and
then choosing Create custom layout does not cause any block devices to be encrypted
automatically.
NOTE
You can use kickstart to set a separate passphrase for each new encrypted block device.
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For additional information on LUKS or encrypting hard drives under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 visit one
of the following links:
LUKS/cryptsetup FAQ
HOWTO: Creating an encrypted Physical Volume (PV) using a second hard drive and pvmove
1. Install the Seahorse utility, which makes GPG key management easier:
2. To create a key, from the Applications → Accessories menu select Passwords and Encryption
Keys, which starts the application Seahorse.
3. From the File menu select New and then PGP Key. Then click Continue.
4. Type your full name, email address, and an optional comment describing who you are (for
example: John C. Smith, [email protected], Software Engineer). Click Create. A dialog is
displayed asking for a passphrase for the key. Choose a strong passphrase but also easy to
remember. Click OK and the key is created.
WARNING
If you forget your passphrase, you will not be able to decrypt the data.
To find your GPG key ID, look in the Key ID column next to the newly created key. In most cases, if you
are asked for the key ID, prepend 0x to the key ID, as in 0x6789ABCD. You should make a backup of
your private key and store it somewhere secure.
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1. Start the KGpg program from the main menu by selecting Applications → Utilities →
Encryption Tool. If you have never used KGpg before, the program walks you through the
process of creating your own GPG keypair.
2. A dialog box appears prompting you to create a new key pair. Enter your name, email address,
and an optional comment. You can also choose an expiration time for your key, as well as the key
strength (number of bits) and algorithms.
3. Enter your passphrase in the next dialog box. At this point, your key appears in the main KGpg
window.
WARNING
If you forget your passphrase, you will not be able to decrypt the data.
To find your GPG key ID, look in the Key ID column next to the newly created key. In most cases, if you
are asked for the key ID, prepend 0x to the key ID, as in 0x6789ABCD. You should make a backup of
your private key and store it somewhere secure.
This command generates a key pair that consists of a public and a private key. Other people use
your public key to authenticate and decrypt your communications. Distribute your public key as
widely as possible, especially to people who you know will want to receive authentic
communications from you, such as a mailing list.
2. A series of prompts directs you through the process. Press the Enter key to assign a default
value if desired. The first prompt asks you to select what kind of key you prefer:
In almost all cases, the default is the correct choice. An RSA/RSA key allows you not only to sign
communications, but also to encrypt files.
Again, the default, 2048, is sufficient for almost all users, and represents an extremely strong
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Again, the default, 2048, is sufficient for almost all users, and represents an extremely strong
level of security.
4. Choose when the key will expire. It is a good idea to choose an expiration date instead of using
the default, which is none. If, for example, the email address on the key becomes invalid, an
expiration date will remind others to stop using that public key.
Entering a value of 1y, for example, makes the key valid for one year. (You may change this
expiration date after the key is generated, if you change your mind.)
5. Before the gpg2 application asks for signature information, the following prompt appears:
6. Enter your name and email address for your GPG key. Remember this process is about
authenticating you as a real individual. For this reason, include your real name. If you choose a
bogus email address, it will be more difficult for others to find your public key. This makes
authenticating your communications difficult. If you are using this GPG key for self-introduction
on a mailing list, for example, enter the email address you use on that list.
Use the comment field to include aliases or other information. (Some people use different keys
for different purposes and identify each key with a comment, such as "Office" or "Open Source
Projects.")
7. At the confirmation prompt, enter the letter O to continue if all entries are correct, or use the
other options to fix any problems. Finally, enter a passphrase for your secret key. The gpg2
program asks you to enter your passphrase twice to ensure you made no typing errors.
8. Finally, gpg2 generates random data to make your key as unique as possible. Move your mouse,
type random keys, or perform other tasks on the system during this step to speed up the
process. Once this step is finished, your keys are complete and ready to use:
9. The key fingerprint is a shorthand "signature" for your key. It allows you to confirm to others that
they have received your actual public key without any tampering. You do not need to write this
fingerprint down. To display the fingerprint at any time, use this command, substituting your
email address:
Your "GPG key ID" consists of 8 hex digits identifying the public key. In the example above, the
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Your "GPG key ID" consists of 8 hex digits identifying the public key. In the example above, the
GPG key ID is 1B2AFA1C. In most cases, if you are asked for the key ID, prepend 0x to the key
ID, as in 0x6789ABCD.
WARNING
If you forget your passphrase, the key cannot be used and any data encrypted using
that key will be lost.
2. HowStuffWorks - Encryption
To install the basic openCryptoki packages on your system, including a software implementation of a
token for testing purposes, enter the following command as root:
Depending on the type of hardware tokens you intend to use, you may need to install additional
packages that provide support for your specific use case. For example, to obtain support for Trusted
Platform Module (TPM) devices, you need to install the opencryptoki-tpmtok package.
See the Installing Packages section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide for
general information on how to install packages using the Yum package manager.
To enable the openCryptoki service, you need to run the pkcsslotd daemon. Start the daemon for the
current session by executing the following command as root:
To ensure that the service is automatically started at boot time, enter the following command:
See the Managing Services with systemd chapter of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System
Administrator's Guide for more information on how to use systemd targets to manage services.
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The file defines the individual slots using key-value pairs. Each slot definition can contain a description, a
specification of the token library to be used, and an ID of the slot's manufacturer. Optionally, the version
of the slot's hardware and firmware may be defined. See the opencryptoki.conf(5) manual page for a
description of the file's format and for a more detailed description of the individual keys and the values
that can be assigned to them.
To modify the behavior of the pkcsslotd daemon at run time, use the pkcsconf utility. This tool allows
you to show and configure the state of the daemon, as well as to list and modify the currently
configured slots and tokens. For example, to display information about tokens, issue the following
command (note that all non-root users that need to communicate with the pkcsslotd daemon must be
a part of the pkcs11 system group):
~]$ pkcsconf -t
See the pkcsconf(1) manual page for a list of arguments available with the pkcsconf tool.
WARNING
Keep in mind that only fully trusted users should be assigned membership in the
pkcs11 group, as all members of this group have the right to block other users of
the openCryptoki service from accessing configured PKCS#11 tokens. All members
of this group can also execute arbitrary code with the privileges of any other users
of openCryptoki.
To use your smart card with OpenSSH, store the public key from the card to the
~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Install the PKCS#11 library provided by the opensc package on the client.
PKCS#11 is a Public-Key Cryptography Standard that defines an application programming interface
(API) to cryptographic devices called tokens. Enter the following command as root:
To list the keys on your card, use the ssh-keygen command. Specify the shared library (OpenSC in the
following example) with the -D directive.
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To enable authentication using a smart card on a remote server, transfer the public key to the remote
server. Do it by copying the retrieved string (key) and pasting it to the remote shell, or by storing your
key to a file (smartcard.pub in the following example) and using the ssh-copy-id command:
Storing a public key without a private key file requires to use the SSH_COPY_ID_LEGACY=1
environment variable or the -f option.
OpenSSH can read your public key from a smart card and perform operations with your private key
without exposing the key itself. This means that the private key does not leave the card. To connect to a
remote server using your smart card for authentication, enter the following command and enter the PIN
protecting your card:
Replace the hostname with the actual host name to which you want to connect.
To save unnecessary typing next time you connect to the remote server, store the path to the PKCS#11
library in your ~/.ssh/config file:
Host hostname
PKCS11Provider /usr/lib64/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so
Set up environmental variables to start using ssh-agent. You can skip this step in most cases because
ssh-agent is already running in a typical session. Use the following command to check whether you can
connect to your authentication agent:
~]$ ssh-add -l
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
~]$ eval `ssh-agent`
To avoid writing your PIN every time you connect using this key, add the card to the agent by running
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To avoid writing your PIN every time you connect using this key, add the card to the agent by running
the following command:
NOTE
FIPS 201-2 requires explicit user action by the Personal Identity Verification (PIV)
cardholder as a condition for use of the digital signature key stored on the card. OpenSC
correctly enforces this requirement.
However, for some applications it is impractical to require the cardholder to enter the PIN
for each signature. To cache the smart card PIN, remove the # character before the
pin_cache_ignore_user_consent = true; option in the /etc/opensc-x86_64.conf.
See the Cardholder Authentication for the PIV Digital Signature Key (NISTIR 7863)
report for more information.
Setting up your hardware or software token is described in the Smart Card support in Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7 article.
For more information about the pkcs11-tool utility for managing and using smart cards and similar
PKCS#11 security tokens, see the pkcs11-tool(1) man page.
Trusted keys need a hardware component: the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, which is used to
both create and encrypt (seal) the keys. The TPM seals the keys using a 2048-bit RSA key called the
storage root key (SRK).
In addition to that, trusted keys may also be sealed using a specific set of the TPM's platform
configuration register (PCR) values. The PCR contains a set of integrity-management values that reflect
the BIOS, boot loader, and operating system. This means that PCR-sealed keys can only be decrypted
by the TPM on the exact same system on which they were encrypted. However, once a PCR-sealed
trusted key is loaded (added to a keyring), and thus its associated PCR values are verified, it can be
updated with new (or future) PCR values, so that a new kernel, for example, can be booted. A single key
can also be saved as multiple blobs, each with different PCR values.
Encrypted keys do not require a TPM, as they use the kernel AES encryption, which makes them faster
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than trusted keys. Encrypted keys are created using kernel-generated random numbers and encrypted
by a master key when they are exported into user-space blobs. This master key can be either a trusted
key or a user key, which is their main disadvantage — if the master key is not a trusted key, the encrypted
key is only as secure as the user key used to encrypt it.
Prior to any operations with keys, relevant kernel modules need to be loaded. For trusted keys, it is the
trusted module, and for encrypted keys, it is the encrypted-keys module. Use the following command
as the root user to load both of these modules at once:
Trusted and encrypted keys can be created, loaded, exported, and updated using the keyctl utility. For
detailed information about using keyctl, see keyctl(1).
NOTE
In order to use a TPM (such as for creating and sealing trusted keys), it needs to be
enabled and active. This can be usually achieved through a setting in the machine's BIOS
or using the tpm_setactive command from the tpm-tools package of utilities. Also, the
TrouSers application needs to be installed (the trousers package), and the tcsd daemon,
which is a part of the TrouSers suite, running to communicate with the TPM.
To create a trusted key using a TPM, execute the keyctl command with the following syntax:
The above example creates a trusted key called kmk with the length of 32 bytes (256 bits) and places it
in the user keyring (@u). The keys may have a length of 32 to 128 bytes (256 to 1024 bits). Use the
show subcommand to list the current structure of the kernel keyrings:
The print subcommand outputs the encrypted key to the standard output. To export the key to a user-
space blob, use the pipe subcommand as follows:
To load the trusted key from the user-space blob, use the add command again with the blob as an
argument:
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The TPM-sealed trusted key can then be employed to create secure encrypted keys. The following
command syntax is used for generating encrypted keys:
~]$ keyctl add encrypted name "new [format] key-type:master-key-name keylength" keyring
Based on the above syntax, a command for generating an encrypted key using the already created
trusted key can be constructed as follows:
To create an encrypted key on systems where a TPM is not available, use a random sequence of
numbers to generate a user key, which is then used to seal the actual encrypted keys.
~]$ keyctl add user kmk-user "`dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=32 2>/dev/null`" @u
427069434
Then generate the encrypted key using the random-number user key:
The list subcommand can be used to list all keys in the specified kernel keyring:
IMPORTANT
Keep in mind that encrypted keys that are not sealed by a master trusted key are only as
secure as the user master key (random-number key) used to encrypt them. Therefore,
the master user key should be loaded as securely as possible and preferably early during
the boot process.
The following offline and online resources can be used to acquire additional information pertaining to
the use of trusted and encrypted keys.
Installed Documentation
keyctl(1) — Describes the use of the keyctl utility and its subcommands.
Online Documentation
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 SELinux User's and Administrator's Guide — The SELinux User's and
Administrator's Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 describes the basic principles of SELinux
and documents in detail how to configure and use SELinux with various services, such as the
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See Also
Section A.1.1, “Advanced Encryption Standard — AES” provides a concise description of the
Advanced Encryption Standard.
Section A.2, “Public-key Encryption” describes the public-key cryptographic approach and the
various cryptographic protocols it uses.
The rngd daemon, which is a part of the rng-tools package, is capable of using both environmental noise
and hardware random number generators for extracting entropy. The daemon checks whether the data
supplied by the source of randomness is sufficiently random and then stores it in the random-number
entropy pool of the kernel. The random numbers it generates are made available through the
/dev/random and /dev/urandom character devices.
The difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom is that the former is a blocking device, which
means it stops supplying numbers when it determines that the amount of entropy is insufficient for
generating a properly random output. Conversely, /dev/urandom is a non-blocking source, which reuses
the entropy pool of the kernel and is thus able to provide an unlimited supply of pseudo-random
numbers, albeit with less entropy. As such, /dev/urandom should not be used for creating long-term
cryptographic keys.
To install the rng-tools package, issue the following command as the root user:
To start the rngd daemon with optional parameters, execute it directly. For example, to specify an
alternative source of random-number input (other than /dev/hwrandom), use the following command:
The above command starts the rngd daemon with /dev/hwrng as the device from which random
numbers are read. Similarly, you can use the -o (or --random-device) option to choose the kernel device
for random-number output (other than the default /dev/random). See the rngd(8) manual page for a
list of all available options.
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To check which sources of entropy are available in a given system, execute the following command as
root:
NOTE
After entering the rngd -v command, the according process continues running in
background. The -b, --background option (become a daemon) is applied by default.
If there is not any TPM device present, you will see only the Intel Digital Random Number Generator
(DRNG) as a source of entropy. To check if your CPU supports the RDRAND processor instruction,
enter the following command:
NOTE
For more information and software code examples, see Intel Digital Random Number
Generator (DRNG) Software Implementation Guide.
The rng-tools package also contains the rngtest utility, which can be used to check the randomness of
data. To test the level of randomness of the output of /dev/random, use the rngtest tool as follows:
A high number of failures shown in the output of the rngtest tool indicates that the randomness of the
tested data is insufficient and should not be relied upon. See the rngtest(1) manual page for a list of
options available for the rngtest utility.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 introduced the virtio RNG (Random Number Generator) device that
provides KVM virtual machines with access to entropy from the host machine. With the recommended
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setup, hwrng feeds into the entropy pool of the host Linux kernel (through /dev/random), and QEMU
will use /dev/random as the source for entropy requested by guests.
Previously, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guests could make use of the
entropy from hosts through the rngd user space daemon. Setting up the daemon was a manual step for
each Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, the manual step has been
eliminated, making the entire process seamless and automatic. The use of rngd is now not required and
the guest kernel itself fetches entropy from the host when the available entropy falls below a specific
threshold. The guest kernel is then in a position to make random numbers available to applications as
soon as they request them.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux installer, Anaconda, now provides the virtio-rng module in its installer
image, making available host entropy during the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation.
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user password, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) device, a PKCS#11 device connected to a system, for
example, a smart card, or with the help of a special network server.
The PBD as a technology allows combining different unlocking methods into a policy creating an ability
to unlock the same volume in different ways. The current implementation of the PBD in Red Hat
Enterprise Linux consists of the Clevis framework and plugins called pins. Each pin provides a separate
unlocking capability. For now, the only two pins available are the ones that allow volumes to be unlocked
with TPM or with a network server.
The Network Bound Disc Encryption (NBDE) is a subcategory of the PBD technologies that allows
binding the encrypted volumes to a special network server. The current implementation of the NBDE
includes Clevis pin for Tang server and the Tang server itself.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, NBDE is implemented through the following components and
technologies:
Figure 4.2. The Network-Bound Disk Encryption using Clevis and Tang
Tang is a server for binding data to network presence. It makes a system containing your data available
when the system is bound to a certain secure network. Tang is stateless and does not require TLS or
authentication. Unlike escrow-based solutions, where the server stores all encryption keys and has
knowledge of every key ever used, Tang never interacts with any client keys, so it never gains any
identifying information from the client.
Clevis is a pluggable framework for automated decryption. In NBDE, Clevis provides automated
unlocking of LUKS volumes. The clevis package provides the client side of the feature.
A Clevis pin is a plug-in into the Clevis framework. One of such pins is a plug-in that implements
interactions with the NBDE server — Tang.
Clevis and Tang are generic client and server components that provide network-bound encryption. In
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Clevis and Tang are generic client and server components that provide network-bound encryption. In
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, they are used in conjunction with LUKS to encrypt and decrypt root and
non-root storage volumes to accomplish Network-Bound Disk Encryption.
Both client- and server-side components use the José library to perform encryption and decryption
operations.
When you begin provisioning NBDE, the Clevis pin for Tang server gets a list of the Tang server's
advertised asymmetric keys. Alternatively, since the keys are asymmetric, a list of Tang’s public keys can
be distributed out of band so that clients can operate without access to the Tang server. This mode is
called offline provisioning.
The Clevis pin for Tang uses one of the public keys to generate a unique, cryptographically-strong
encryption key. Once the data is encrypted using this key, the key is discarded. The Clevis client should
store the state produced by this provisioning operation in a convenient location. This process of
encrypting data is the provisioning step. The provisioning state for NBDE is stored in the LUKS header
leveraging the luksmeta package.
When the client is ready to access its data, it loads the metadata produced in the provisioning step and it
responds to recover the encryption key. This process is the recovery step.
In NBDE, Clevis binds a LUKS volume using a pin so that it can be automatically unlocked. After
successful completion of the binding process, the disk can be unlocked using the provided Dracut
unlocker.
To decrypt data, use the clevis decrypt command and provide the cipher text (JWE):
~]$ clevis
Usage: clevis COMMAND [OPTIONS]
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Prerequisites
Procedure
1. To install the tang package and its dependencies, enter the following command as root:
2. Pick an unoccupied port, for example, 7500/tcp, and allow the tangd service to bind to that
port:
Note that a port can be used only by one service at a time, and thus an attempt to use an
already occupied port implies the ValueError: Port already defined error message.
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6. In the following editor screen, which opens an empty override.conf file located in the
/etc/systemd/system/tangd.socket.d/ directory, change the default port for the Tang server
from 80 to the previously picked number by adding the following lines:
[Socket]
ListenStream=
ListenStream=7500
Because tangd uses the systemd socket activation mechanism, the server starts as soon as the first
connection comes in. A new set of cryptographic keys is automatically generated at the first start.
To perform cryptographic operations such as manual key generation, use the jose utility. Enter the jose
-h command or see the jose(1) man pages for more information.
It is important to periodically rotate your keys. The precise interval at which you should rotate them
depends upon your application, key sizes, and institutional policy. For some common
recommendations, see the Cryptographic Key Length Recommendation page.
To rotate keys, start with the generation of new keys in the key database directory, typically
/var/db/tang. For example, you can create new signature and exchange keys with the following
commands:
~]# DB=/var/db/tang
~]# jose jwk gen -i '{"alg":"ES512"}' -o $DB/new_sig.jwk
~]# jose jwk gen -i '{"alg":"ECMR"}' -o $DB/new_exc.jwk
Rename the old keys to have a leading . to hide them from advertisement. Note that the file names in
the following example differs from real and unique file names in the key database directory.
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At this point, new client bindings pick up the new keys and old clients can continue to utilize the old
keys. When you are sure that all old clients use the new keys, you can remove the old keys.
WARNING
Be aware that removing the old keys while clients are still using them can result in
data loss.
Clients should be configured with the ability to bind to multiple Tang servers. In this setup, each
Tang server has its own keys and clients are able to decrypt by contacting a subset of these
servers. Clevis already supports this workflow through its sss plug-in.
For more information about this setup, see the following man pages:
clevis-encrypt-sss(1)
2. Key Sharing
For redundancy purposes, more than one instance of Tang can be deployed. To set up a second
or any subsequent instance, install the tang packages and copy the key directory to the new
host using rsync over SSH. Note that Red Hat does not recommend this method because
sharing keys increases the risk of key compromise and requires additional automation
infrastructure.
The Clevis framework is installed. See Section 4.10.2, “Installing an Encryption Client - Clevis”
A Tang server is available. See Section 4.10.3, “Deploying a Tang Server with SELinux in
Enforcing Mode”
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Procedure
To bind a Clevis encryption client to a Tang server, use the clevis encrypt tang sub-command:
_OsIk0T-E2l6qjfdDiwVmidoZjA
Change the http://tang.srv URL in the previous example to match the URL of the server where tang is
installed. The JWE output file contains your encrypted cipher text. This cipher text is read from the
PLAINTEXT input file.
To decrypt data, use the clevis decrypt command and provide the cipher text (JWE):
For more information, see the clevis-encrypt-tang(1) man page or use the built-in CLI help:
~]$ clevis
Usage: clevis COMMAND [OPTIONS]
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To choose a different hierarchy, hash, and key algorithms, specify configuration properties, for example:
The pin also supports sealing data to a Platform Configuration Registers (PCR) state. That way the data
can only be unsealed if the PCRs hashes values match the policy used when sealing.
For example, to seal the data to the PCR with index 0 and 1 for the SHA1 bank:
For more information and the list of possible configuration properties, see the clevis-encrypt-tpm2(1)
man page.
_OsIk0T-E2l6qjfdDiwVmidoZjA
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1. Creates a new key with the same entropy as the LUKS master key.
3. Stores the Clevis JWE object in the LUKS header with LUKSMeta.
This disk can now be unlocked with your existing password as well as with the Clevis policy. For more
information, see the clevis-luks-bind(1) man page.
NOTE
The binding procedure assumes that there is at least one free LUKS password slot. The
clevis luks bind command takes one of the slots.
To verify that the Clevis JWE object is successfully placed in a LUKS header, use the luksmeta show
command:
To enable the early boot system to process the disk binding, enter the following commands on an
already installed system:
IMPORTANT
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IMPORTANT
To use NBDE for clients with static IP configuration (without DHCP), pass your network
configuration to the dracut tool manually, for example:
Alternatively, create a .conf file in the /etc/dracut.conf.d/ directory with the static
network information. For example:
~]# dracut -f
1. Instruct Kickstart to partition the disk such that the root partition has enabled LUKS encryption
with a temporary password. The password is temporary for the enrollment process.
2. Install the related Clevis packages by listing them in the %packages section:
%packages
clevis-dracut
%end
3. Call clevis luks bind to perform binding in the %post section. Afterward, remove the
temporary password:
%post
clevis luks bind -f -k- -d /dev/vda2 \
tang '{"url":"http://tang.srv","thp":"_OsIk0T-E2l6qjfdDiwVmidoZjA"}' \ <<< "temppass"
cryptsetup luksRemoveKey /dev/vda2 - <<< "temppass"
%end
In the above example, note that we specify the thumbprint that we trust on the Tang server as
part of our binding configuration, enabling binding to be completely non-interactive.
You can use an analogous procedure when using a TPM 2.0 policy instead of a Tang server.
For more information on Kickstart installations, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide .
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For more information on Kickstart installations, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide .
For information on Linux Unified Key Setup-on-disk-format (LUKS), see Section 4.9.1, “Using LUKS Disk
Encryption”.
Reboot the system, and then perform the binding step using the clevis luks bind command as
described in Section 4.10.6, “Configuring Manual Enrollment of Root Volumes” , for example:
The LUKS-encrypted removable device can be now unlocked automatically in your GNOME desktop
session. The device bound to a Clevis policy can be also unlocked by the clevis luks unlock command:
You can use an analogous procedure when using a TPM 2.0 policy instead of a Tang server.
3. Perform the binding step using the clevis luks bind command as described in Section 4.10.6,
“Configuring Manual Enrollment of Root Volumes”.
4. To set up the encrypted block device during system boot, add the corresponding line with the
_netdev option to the /etc/crypttab configuration file. See the crypttab(5) man page for more
information.
5. Add the volume to the list of accessible filesystems in the /etc/fstab file. Use the _netdev
option in this configuration file, too. See the fstab(5) man page for more information.
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This is not a limitation of Clevis but a design principle of LUKS. If you wish to have encrypted root
volumes in a cloud, you need to make sure that you perform the installation process (usually using
Kickstart) for each instance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a cloud as well. The images cannot be shared
without also sharing a LUKS master key.
If you intend to deploy automated unlocking in a virtualized environment, Red Hat strongly recommends
that you use systems such as lorax or virt-install together with a Kickstart file (see Section 4.10.7,
“Configuring Automated Enrollment Using Kickstart”) or another automated provisioning tool to ensure
that each encrypted VM has a unique master key.
Therefore, the best practice is to create customized images that are not shared in any public repository
and that provide a base for the deployment of a limited amount of instances. The exact number of
instances to create should be defined by deployment's security policies and based on the risk tolerance
associated with the LUKS master key attack vector.
To build LUKS-enabled automated deployments, systems such as Lorax or virt-install together with a
Kickstart file should be used to ensure master key uniqueness during the image building process.
Cloud environments enable two Tang server deployment options which we consider here. First, the Tang
server can be deployed within the cloud environment itself. Second, the Tang server can be deployed
outside of the cloud on independent infrastructure with a VPN link between the two infrastructures.
Deploying Tang natively in the cloud does allow for easy deployment. However, given that it shares
infrastructure with the data persistence layer of ciphertext of other systems, it may be possible for both
the Tang server’s private key and the Clevis metadata to be stored on the same physical disk. Access to
this physical disk permits a full compromise of the ciphertext data.
IMPORTANT
For this reason, Red Hat strongly recommends maintaining a physical separation between
the location where the data is stored and the system where Tang is running. This
separation between the cloud and the Tang server ensures that the Tang server’s private
key cannot be accidentally combined with the Clevis metadata. It also provides local
control of the Tang server if the cloud infrastructure is at risk.
tang(8)
clevis(1)
jose(1)
clevis-luks-unlockers(1)
tang-nagios(1)
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NOTE
In the default configuration, the aide --init command checks just a set of directories and
files defined in the /etc/aide.conf file. To include additional directories or files in the AIDE
database, and to change their watched parameters, edit /etc/aide.conf accordingly.
To start using the database, remove the .new substring from the initial database file name:
To change the location of the AIDE database, edit the /etc/aide.conf file and modify the DBDIR value.
For additional security, store the database, configuration, and the /usr/sbin/aide binary file in a secure
location such as a read-only media.
IMPORTANT
To avoid SELinux denials after the AIDE database location change, update your SELinux
policy accordingly. See the SELinux User's and Administrator's Guide for more
information.
Summary:
Total number of files: 147173
Added files: 1
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Removed files: 0
Changed files: 2
...
At a minimum, AIDE should be configured to run a weekly scan. At most, AIDE should be run daily. For
example, to schedule a daily execution of AIDE at 4:05 am using cron (see the Automating System
Tasks chapter in the System Administrator's Guide), add the following line to /etc/crontab:
The aide --update command creates the /var/lib/aide/aide.db.new.gz database file. To start using it for
integrity checks, remove the .new substring from the file name.
Guide to the Secure Configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (OpenSCAP Security Guide):
Verify Integrity with AIDE
The daemon component with an inter-process communication (IPC) interface for dynamic
interaction and policy enforcement.
The C++ API for interacting with the daemon component implemented in a shared library.
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To create the initial rule set, enter the following command as root:
NOTE
To customize the USBGuard rule set, edit the /etc/usbguard/rules.conf file. See the
usbguard-rules.conf(5) man page for more information. Additionally, see Section 4.12.3,
“Using the Rule Language to Create Your Own Policy” for examples.
To ensure USBGuard starts automatically at system start, use the following command as root:
To list all USB devices recognized by USBGuard, enter the following command as root:
To authorize a device to interact with the system, use the allow-device option:
To deauthorize and remove a device from the system, use the reject-device option. To just deauthorize
a device, use the usbguard command with the block-device option:
USBGuard uses the block and reject terms with the following meaning:
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To see all options of the usbguard command, enter it with the --help directive:
To create a white list or a black list, edit the usbguard-daemon.conf file and use the following options:
RuleFile=<path>
The usbguard daemon use this file to load the policy rule set from it and to write new rules received
through the IPC interface.
IPCAccessControlFiles=<path>
Path to a directory holding the IPC access control files.
ImplicitPolicyTarget=<target>
How to treat devices that do not match any rule in the policy. Accepted values: allow, block, reject.
PresentDevicePolicy=<policy>
How to treat devices that are already connected when the daemon starts:
PresentControllerPolicy=<policy>
How to treat USB controllers that are already connected when the daemon starts:
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The following configuration file orders the usbguard daemon to load rules from the
/etc/usbguard/rules.conf file and it allows only users from the usbguard group to use the IPC
interface:
RuleFile=/etc/usbguard/rules.conf
IPCAccessControlFiles=/etc/usbguard/IPCAccessControl.d/
To specify the IPC Access Control List (ACL), use the usbguard add-user or usbguard remove-
user commands. See the usbguard(1) for more details. In this example, to allow users from the
usbguard group to modify USB device authorization state, list USB devices, listen to exception
events, and list USB authorization policy, enter the following command as root:
IMPORTANT
The daemon provides the USBGuard public IPC interface. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
the access to this interface is by default limited to the root user only. Consider setting
either the IPCAccessControlFiles option (recommended) or the IPCAllowedUsers and
IPCAllowedGroups options to limit access to the IPC interface. Do not leave the ACL
unconfigured as this exposes the IPC interface to all local users and it allows them to
manipulate the authorization state of USB devices and modify the USBGuard policy.
For more information, see the IPC Access Control section in the usbguard-daemon.conf(5) man page.
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For more details about the rule language such as targets, device specification, or device attributes, see
the usbguard-rules.conf(5) man page.
The blocking is implicit because there is no block rule. Implicit blocking is useful to desktop users
because a desktop applet listening to USBGuard events can ask the user for a decision if an
implicit target was selected for a device.
allow 1050:0011 name "Yubico Yubikey II" serial "0001234567" via-port "1-2" hash
"044b5e168d40ee0245478416caf3d998"
reject via-port "1-2"
NOTE
Blacklisting is the wrong approach and you should not just blacklist a set of devices
and allow the rest. The policy above assumes that blocking is the implicit default.
Rejecting a set of devices considered as "bad" is a good approach how to limit the
exposure of the system to such devices as much as possible.
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After an initial policy generation using the usbguard generate-policy command, edit the
/etc/usbguard/rules.conf to customize the USBGuard policy rules.
To install the updated policy and make your changes effective, use the following commands:
Note that the default settings provided by libraries included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are secure
enough for most deployments. The TLS implementations use secure algorithms where possible while
not preventing connections from or to legacy clients or servers. Apply the hardened settings described
in this section in environments with strict security requirements where legacy clients or servers that do
not support secure algorithms or protocols are not expected or allowed to connect.
Protocol Versions
The latest version of TLS provides the best security mechanism. Unless you have a compelling reason to
include support for older versions of TLS (or even SSL), allow your systems to negotiate connections
using only the latest version of TLS.
Do not allow negotiation using SSL version 2 or 3. Both of those versions have serious security
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Do not allow negotiation using SSL version 2 or 3. Both of those versions have serious security
vulnerabilities. Only allow negotiation using TLS version 1.0 or higher. The current version of TLS, 1.2,
should always be preferred.
NOTE
Please note that currently, the security of all versions of TLS depends on the use of TLS
extensions, specific ciphers (see below), and other workarounds. All TLS connection
peers need to implement secure renegotiation indication (RFC 5746), must not support
compression, and must implement mitigating measures for timing attacks against CBC-
mode ciphers (the Lucky Thirteen attack). TLS 1.0 clients need to additionally implement
record splitting (a workaround against the BEAST attack). TLS 1.2 supports
Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) mode ciphers like AES-GCM,
AES-CCM, or Camellia-GCM, which have no known issues. All the mentioned mitigations
are implemented in cryptographic libraries included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
See Table 4.6, “Protocol Versions” for a quick overview of protocol versions and recommended usage.
TLS 1.0 Use for interoperability purposes where needed. Has known issues that cannot be mitigated
in a way that guarantees interoperability, and thus mitigations are not enabled by default.
Does not support modern cipher suites.
TLS 1.1 Use for interoperability purposes where needed. Has no known issues but relies on protocol
fixes that are included in all the TLS implementations in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Does
not support modern cipher suites.
TLS 1.2 Recommended version. Supports the modern AEAD cipher suites.
Some components in Red Hat Enterprise Linux are configured to use TLS 1.0 even though they provide
support for TLS 1.1 or even 1.2. This is motivated by an attempt to achieve the highest level of
interoperability with external services that may not support the latest versions of TLS. Depending on
your interoperability requirements, enable the highest available version of TLS.
IMPORTANT
SSL v3 is not recommended for use. However, if, despite the fact that it is considered
insecure and unsuitable for general use, you absolutely must leave SSL v3 enabled, see
Section 4.8, “Using stunnel” for instructions on how to use stunnel to securely encrypt
communications even when using services that do not support encryption or are only
capable of using obsolete and insecure modes of encryption.
Cipher Suites
Modern, more secure cipher suites should be preferred to old, insecure ones. Always disable the use of
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eNULL and aNULL cipher suites, which do not offer any encryption or authentication at all. If at all
possible, ciphers suites based on RC4 or HMAC-MD5, which have serious shortcomings, should also be
disabled. The same applies to the so-called export cipher suites, which have been intentionally made
weaker, and thus are easy to break.
While not immediately insecure, cipher suites that offer less than 128 bits of security should not be
considered for their short useful life. Algorithms that use 128 bit of security or more can be expected to
be unbreakable for at least several years, and are thus strongly recommended. Note that while 3DES
ciphers advertise the use of 168 bits, they actually offer 112 bits of security.
Always give preference to cipher suites that support (perfect) forward secrecy (PFS), which ensures the
confidentiality of encrypted data even in case the server key is compromised. This rules out the fast
RSA key exchange, but allows for the use of ECDHE and DHE. Of the two, ECDHE is the faster and
therefore the preferred choice.
You should also give preference to AEAD ciphers, such as AES-GCM, before CBC-mode ciphers as
they are not vulnerable to padding oracle attacks. Additionally, in many cases, AES-GCM is faster than
AES in CBC mode, especially when the hardware has cryptographic accelerators for AES.
Note also that when using the ECDHE key exchange with ECDSA certificates, the transaction is even
faster than pure RSA key exchange. To provide support for legacy clients, you can install two pairs of
certificates and keys on a server: one with ECDSA keys (for new clients) and one with RSA keys (for
legacy ones).
WARNING
Keep in mind that the security of your system is only as strong as the weakest link in
the chain. For example, a strong cipher alone does not guarantee good security. The
keys and the certificates are just as important, as well as the hash functions and keys
used by the Certification Authority (CA) to sign your keys.
The available TLS implementations offer support for various cipher suites that define all the elements
that come together when establishing and using TLS-secured communications.
Use the tools included with the different implementations to list and specify cipher suites that provide
the best possible security for your use case while considering the recommendations outlined in
Section 4.13.1, “Choosing Algorithms to Enable” . The resulting cipher suites can then be used to
configure the way individual applications negotiate and secure connections.
IMPORTANT
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IMPORTANT
Be sure to check your settings following every update or upgrade of the TLS
implementation you use or the applications that utilize that implementation. New versions
may introduce new cipher suites that you do not want to have enabled and that your
current configuration does not disable.
OpenSSL is a toolkit and a cryptography library that support the SSL and TLS protocols. On Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7, a configuration file is provided at /etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf. The format of this
configuration file is described in config(1). See also Section 4.7.9, “Configuring OpenSSL”.
To get a list of all cipher suites supported by your installation of OpenSSL, use the openssl command
with the ciphers subcommand as follows:
Pass other parameters (referred to as cipher strings and keywords in OpenSSL documentation) to the
ciphers subcommand to narrow the output. Special keywords can be used to only list suites that satisfy
a certain condition. For example, to only list suites that are defined as belonging to the HIGH group, use
the following command:
See the ciphers(1) manual page for a list of available keywords and cipher strings.
To obtain a list of cipher suites that satisfy the recommendations outlined in Section 4.13.1, “Choosing
Algorithms to Enable”, use a command similar to the following:
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Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH Au=RSA Enc=AES(128) Mac=SHA256
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA SSLv3 Kx=DH Au=RSA Enc=AES(128) Mac=SHA1
The above command omits all insecure ciphers, gives preference to ephemeral elliptic curve Diffie-
Hellman key exchange and ECDSA ciphers, and omits RSA key exchange (thus ensuring perfect
forward secrecy).
Note that this is a rather strict configuration, and it might be necessary to relax the conditions in real-
world scenarios to allow for a compatibility with a broader range of clients.
GnuTLS is a communications library that implements the SSL and TLS protocols and related
technologies.
NOTE
The GnuTLS installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 offers optimal default
configuration values that provide sufficient security for the majority of use cases. Unless
you need to satisfy special security requirements, it is recommended to use the supplied
defaults.
Use the gnutls-cli command with the -l (or --list) option to list all supported cipher suites:
~]$ gnutls-cli -l
To narrow the list of cipher suites displayed by the -l option, pass one or more parameters (referred to
as priority strings and keywords in GnuTLS documentation) to the --priority option. See the GnuTLS
documentation at http://www.gnutls.org/manual/gnutls.html#Priority-Strings for a list of all available
priority strings. For example, issue the following command to get a list of cipher suites that offer at least
128 bits of security:
To obtain a list of cipher suites that satisfy the recommendations outlined in Section 4.13.1, “Choosing
Algorithms to Enable”, use a command similar to the following:
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The above command limits the output to ciphers with at least 128 bits of security while giving preference
to the stronger ones. It also forbids RSA key exchange and DSS authentication.
Note that this is a rather strict configuration, and it might be necessary to relax the conditions in real-
world scenarios to allow for a compatibility with a broader range of clients.
Regardless of the configuration you choose to use, always make sure to mandate that your server
application enforces server-side cipher order , so that the cipher suite to be used is determined by the
order you configure.
The Apache HTTP Server can use both OpenSSL and NSS libraries for its TLS needs. Depending on
your choice of the TLS library, you need to install either the mod_ssl or the mod_nss module (provided
by eponymous packages). For example, to install the package that provides the OpenSSL mod_ssl
module, issue the following command as root:
The mod_ssl package installs the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf configuration file, which can be used to
modify the TLS-related settings of the Apache HTTP Server. Similarly, the mod_nss package installs
the /etc/httpd/conf.d/nss.conf configuration file.
Install the httpd-manual package to obtain complete documentation for the Apache HTTP Server,
including TLS configuration. The directives available in the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf configuration file
are described in detail in /usr/share/httpd/manual/mod/mod_ssl.html. Examples of various settings
are in /usr/share/httpd/manual/ssl/ssl_howto.html.
When modifying the settings in the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf configuration file, be sure to consider the
following three directives at the minimum:
SSLProtocol
Use this directive to specify the version of TLS (or SSL) you want to allow.
SSLCipherSuite
Use this directive to specify your preferred cipher suite or disable the ones you want to disallow.
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SSLHonorCipherOrder
Uncomment and set this directive to on to ensure that the connecting clients adhere to the order of
ciphers you specified.
For example:
Note that the above configuration is the bare minimum, and it can be hardened significantly by following
the recommendations outlined in Section 4.13.1, “Choosing Algorithms to Enable” .
To configure and use the mod_nss module, modify the /etc/httpd/conf.d/nss.conf configuration file.
The mod_nss module is derived from mod_ssl, and as such it shares many features with it, not least the
structure of the configuration file, and the directives that are available. Note that the mod_nss
directives have a prefix of NSS instead of SSL. See
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/mod_nss.git/plain/docs/mod_nss.html for an overview of information
about mod_nss, including a list of mod_ssl configuration directives that are not applicable to mod_nss.
To configure your installation of the Dovecot mail server to use TLS, modify the
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-ssl.conf configuration file. You can find an explanation of some of the basic
configuration directives available in that file in /usr/share/doc/dovecot-
2.2.10/wiki/SSL.DovecotConfiguration.txt (this help file is installed along with the standard installation
of Dovecot).
ssl_protocols
Use this directive to specify the version of TLS (or SSL) you want to allow.
ssl_cipher_list
Use this directive to specify your preferred cipher suites or disable the ones you want to disallow.
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers
Uncomment and set this directive to yes to ensure that the connecting clients adhere to the order of
ciphers you specified.
For example:
Note that the above configuration is the bare minimum, and it can be hardened significantly by following
the recommendations outlined in Section 4.13.1, “Choosing Algorithms to Enable” .
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For more information about TLS configuration and related topics, see the resources listed below.
Installed Documentation
config(1) — Describes the format of the /etc/ssl/openssl.conf configuration file.
Online Documentation
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 SELinux User's and Administrator's Guide — The SELinux User's and
Administrator's Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 describes the basic principles of SELinux
and documents in detail how to configure and use SELinux with various services, such as the
Apache HTTP Server.
See Also
Section A.2.4, “SSL/TLS” provides a concise description of the SSL and TLS protocols.
Section 4.7, “Using OpenSSL” describes, among other things, how to use OpenSSL to create
and manage keys, generate certificates, and encrypt and decrypt files.
Certificate files are treated depending on the subdirectory they are installed to:
# cp ~/certificate-trust-examples/Cert-trust-test-ca.pem /usr/share/pki/ca-trust-source/anchors/
# update-ca-trust
NOTE
While the Firefox browser is able to use an added certificate without executing update-
ca-trust, it is recommended to run update-ca-trust after a CA change. Also note that
browsers, such as Firefox, Epiphany, or Chromium, cache files, and you might need to
clear the browser's cache or restart your browser to load the current system certificates
configuration.
$ trust
usage: trust command <args>...
To list all system trust anchors and certificates, use the trust list command:
$ trust list
pkcs11:id=%d2%87%b4%e3%df%37%27%93%55%f6%56%ea%81%e5%36%cc%8c%1e%3f%bd;ty
pe=cert
type: certificate
label: ACCVRAIZ1
trust: anchor
category: authority
pkcs11:id=%a6%b3%e1%2b%2b%49%b6%d7%73%a1%aa%94%f5%01%e7%73%65%4c%ac%50;t
ype=cert
type: certificate
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All sub-commands of the trust commands offer a detailed built-in help, for example:
To store a trust anchor into the system-wide trust store, use the trust anchor sub-command and
specify a path.to a certificate, for example:
update-ca-trust(8)
trust(1)
See the MACsec: a different solution to encrypt network traffic article for more information about the
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See the MACsec: a different solution to encrypt network traffic article for more information about the
architecture of a MACsec network, use case scenarios, and configuration examples.
For examples how to configure MACsec using wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager, see the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7 Networking Guide.
File
A regular file is scrubbed and only the data in the file is destroyed.
Directory
With the -X option, a directory is created and filled with files until the file system is full. Then, the files
are scrubbed as in file mode.
To scrub a raw device /dev/sdf1 with default National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
patterns, enter the following command:
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~]$ ls -lh
total 1.0M
-rw-rw-r--. 1 username username 1.0M Sep 8 15:23 file.txt
~]$ ls -lh
total 1.0M
-rw-rw-r--. 1 username username 1.0M Sep 8 15:24 file.txt
For more information on scrub modes, options, methods, and caveats, see the scrub(1) man page.
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NOTE
To expand your expertise, you might also be interested in the Red Hat Server Hardening
(RH413) training course.
firewalld is a firewall service daemon that provides a dynamic customizable host-based firewall with a D-
Bus interface. Being dynamic, it enables creating, changing, and deleting the rules without the necessity
to restart the firewall daemon each time the rules are changed.
firewalld uses the concepts of zones and services, that simplify the traffic management. Zones are
predefined sets of rules. Network interfaces and sources can be assigned to a zone. The traffic allowed
depends on the network your computer is connected to and the security level this network is assigned.
Firewall services are predefined rules that cover all necessary settings to allow incoming traffic for a
specific service and they apply within a zone.
Services use one or more ports or addresses for network communication. Firewalls filter communication
based on ports. To allow network traffic for a service, its ports must be open. firewalld blocks all traffic
on ports that are not explicitly set as open. Some zones, such as trusted, allow all traffic by default.
5.1.1. Zones
firewalld can be used to separate networks into different zones according to the level of trust that the
user has decided to place on the interfaces and traffic within that network. A connection can only be
part of one zone, but a zone can be used for many network connections.
NetworkManager notifies firewalld of the zone of an interface. You can assign zones to interfaces with
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NetworkManager, with the firewall-config tool, or the firewall-cmd command-line tool. The latter two
only edit the appropriate NetworkManager configuration files. If you change the zone of the interface
using firewall-cmd or firewall-config, the request is forwarded to NetworkManager and is not handled
by f irewalld.
The predefined zones are stored in the /usr/lib/firewalld/zones/ directory and can be instantly applied
to any available network interface. These files are copied to the /etc/firewalld/zones/ directory only
after they are modified. The following table describes the default settings of the predefined zones:
block
Any incoming network connections are rejected with an icmp-host-prohibited message for IPv4 and
icmp6-adm-prohibited for IPv6. Only network connections initiated from within the system are
possible.
dmz
For computers in your demilitarized zone that are publicly-accessible with limited access to your
internal network. Only selected incoming connections are accepted.
drop
Any incoming network packets are dropped without any notification. Only outgoing network
connections are possible.
external
For use on external networks with masquerading enabled, especially for routers. You do not trust the
other computers on the network to not harm your computer. Only selected incoming connections are
accepted.
home
For use at home when you mostly trust the other computers on the network. Only selected incoming
connections are accepted.
internal
For use on internal networks when you mostly trust the other computers on the network. Only
selected incoming connections are accepted.
public
For use in public areas where you do not trust other computers on the network. Only selected
incoming connections are accepted.
trusted
All network connections are accepted.
work
For use at work where you mostly trust the other computers on the network. Only selected incoming
connections are accepted.
One of these zones is set as the default zone. When interface connections are added to
NetworkManager, they are assigned to the default zone. On installation, the default zone in firewalld is
set to be the public zone. The default zone can be changed.
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NOTE
The network zone names have been chosen to be self-explanatory and to allow users to
quickly make a reasonable decision. To avoid any security problems, review the default
zone configuration and disable any unnecessary services according to your needs and risk
assessments.
Service configuration options and generic file information are described in the firewalld.service(5) man
page. The services are specified by means of individual XML configuration files, which are named in the
following format: service-name.xml. Protocol names are preferred over service or application names in
firewalld.
To make the changes persistent across reboots, apply them again using the --permanent option.
Alternatively, to make changes persistent while firewalld is running, use the --runtime-to-permanent
firewall-cmd option.
If you set the rules while firewalld is running using only the --permanent option, they do not become
effective before firewalld is restarted. However, restarting firewalld closes all open ports and stops the
networking traffic.
2. Set permanent settings and reload the settings into runtime mode:
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The first method allows you to test the settings before you apply them to the permanent mode.
NOTE
Alternatively, in GNOME, use the Super key and type Software to launch the Software Sources
application. Type firewall to the search box, which appears after selecting the search button in the top-
right corner. Select the Firewall item from the search results, and click on the Install button.
To run firewall-config, use either the firewall-config command or press the Super key to enter the
Activities Overview, type firewall, and press Enter.
The firewall service, firewalld, is installed on the system by default. Use the firewalld CLI interface to
check that the service is running.
For more information about the service status, use the systemctl status sub-command:
Furthermore, it is important to know how firewalld is set up and which rules are in force before you try
to edit the settings. To display the firewall settings, see Section 5.3.2, “Viewing Current firewalld
Settings”
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To view the list of services using the graphical firewall-config tool, press the Super key to enter the
Activities Overview, type firewall, and press Enter. The firewall-config tool appears. You can now view
the list of services under the Services tab.
Alternatively, to start the graphical firewall configuration tool using the command-line, enter the
following command:
~]$ firewall-config
The Firewall Configuration window opens. Note that this command can be run as a normal user, but you
are prompted for an administrator password occasionally.
With the CLI client, it is possible to get different views of the current firewall settings. The --list-all
option shows a complete overview of the firewalld settings.
firewalld uses zones to manage the traffic. If a zone is not specified by the --zone option, the command
is effective in the default zone assigned to the active network interface and connection.
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NOTE
To specify the zone for which to display the settings, add the --zone=zone-name
argument to the firewall-cmd --list-all command, for example:
To see the settings for particular information, such as services or ports, use a specific option. See the
firewalld manual pages or get a list of the options using the command help:
General Options
-h, --help Prints a short help text and exists
-V, --version Print the version string of firewalld
-q, --quiet Do not print status messages
Status Options
--state Return and print firewalld state
--reload Reload firewall and keep state information
... [output truncated]
For example, to see which services are allowed in the current zone:
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Listing the settings for a certain subpart using the CLI tool can sometimes be difficult to interpret. For
example, you allow the SSH service and firewalld opens the necessary port (22) for the service. Later, if
you list the allowed services, the list shows the SSH service, but if you list open ports, it does not show
any. Therefore, it is recommended to use the --list-all option to make sure you receive a complete
information.
To ensure firewalld starts automatically at system start, enter the following command as root:
To prevent firewalld from starting automatically at system start, enter the following command as root:
To make sure firewalld is not started by accessing the firewalld D-Bus interface and also if other
services require firewalld, enter the following command as root:
Alternatively, you can edit the XML files in the /etc/firewalld/services/ directory. If a service is not
added or changed by the user, then no corresponding XML file is found in /etc/firewalld/services/. The
files in the /usr/lib/firewalld/services/ directory can be used as templates if you want to add or change a
service.
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Switching off panic mode reverts the firewall to its permanent settings. To switch panic mode off:
To edit a service, start the firewall-config tool and select Permanent from the menu labeled
Configuration. Additional icons and menu buttons appear at the bottom of the Services window.
Select the service you want to configure.
The Ports, Protocols, and Source Port tabs enable adding, changing, and removing of ports, protocols,
and source port for the selected service. The modules tab is for configuring Netfilter helper modules.
The Destination tab enables limiting traffic to a particular destination address and Internet Protocol
(IPv4 or IPv6).
NOTE
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NOTE
To add a new service in a terminal, use firewall-cmd, or firewall-offline-cmd in case of not active
firewalld. enter the following command to add a new and empty service:
To add a new service using a local file, use the following command:
You can change the service name with the additional --name=service-name option.
As soon as service settings are changed, an updated copy of the service is placed into
/etc/firewalld/services/.
As root, you can enter the following command to copy a service manually:
firewalld loads files from /usr/lib/firewalld/services in the first place. If files are placed in
/etc/firewalld/services and they are valid, then these will override the matching files from
/usr/lib/firewalld/services. The overriden files in /usr/lib/firewalld/services are used as soon as the
matching files in /etc/firewalld/services have been removed or if firewalld has been asked to load the
defaults of the services. This applies to the permanent environment only. A reload is needed to get
these fallbacks also in the runtime environment.
Normally, system services listen on standard ports that are reserved for them. The httpd daemon, for
example, listens on port 80. However, system administrators by default configure daemons to listen on
different ports to enhance security or for other reasons.
Opening a Port
Through open ports, the system is accessible from the outside, which represents a security risk.
Generally, keep ports closed and only open them if they are required for certain services.
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The port types are either tcp, udp, sctp, or dccp. The type must match the type of network
communication.
Closing a Port
When an open port is no longer needed, close that port in firewalld. It is highly recommended to close all
unnecessary ports as soon as they are not used because leaving a port open represents a security risk.
2. Remove the port from the allowed ports to close it for the incoming traffic:
Enter the port number or range of ports to permit. Select tcp or udp from the list.
Either select a protocol from the list or select the Other Protocol check box and enter the protocol in
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Either select a protocol from the list or select the Other Protocol check box and enter the protocol in
the field.
Enter the port number or range of ports to permit. Select tcp or udp from the list.
The firewall-cmd --get-zones command displays all zones that are available on the system, but it does
not show any details for particular zones.
The Section 5.6.3, “Controlling Traffic with Predefined Services using CLI” and Section 5.6.6,
“Controlling Ports using CLI” explain how to add services or modify ports in the scope of the current
working zone. Sometimes, it is required to set up rules in a different zone.
To work in a different zone, use the --zone=zone-name option. For example, to allow the SSH service in
the zone public:
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NOTE
Following this procedure, the setting is a permanent setting, even without the --
permanent option.
NOTE
You do not have to use the --permanent option to make the setting persistent across
restarts. If you set a new default zone, the setting becomes permanent.
To set a default zone for an Internet connection, use either the NetworkManager GUI or edit the
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-connection-name file and add a line that assigns a zone to this
connection:
ZONE=zone-name
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A firewalld zone configuration file contains the information for a zone. These are the zone description,
services, ports, protocols, icmp-blocks, masquerade, forward-ports and rich language rules in an XML
file format. The file name has to be zone-name.xml where the length of zone-name is currently limited
to 17 chars. The zone configuration files are located in the /usr/lib/firewalld/zones/ and
/etc/firewalld/zones/ directories.
The following example shows a configuration that allows one service (SSH) and one port range, for both
the TCP and UDP protocols.:
To change settings for that zone, add or remove sections to add ports, forward ports, services, and so
on. For more information, see the firewalld.zone manual pages.
5.7.8. Using Zone Targets to Set Default Behavior for Incoming Traffic
For every zone, you can set a default behavior that handles incoming traffic that is not further specified.
Such behaviour is defined by setting the target of the zone. There are three options - default, ACCEPT,
REJECT, and DROP. By setting the target to ACCEPT, you accept all incoming packets except those
disabled by a specific rule. If you set the target to REJECT or DROP, you disable all incoming packets
except those that you have allowed in specific rules. When packets are rejected, the source machine is
informed about the rejection, while there is no information sent when the packets are dropped.
1. List the information for the specific zone to see the default target:
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If you add a source to a zone, the zone becomes active and any incoming traffic from that source will be
directed through it. You can specify different settings for each zone, which is applied to the traffic from
the given sources accordingly. You can use more zones even if you only have one network interface.
The following procedure allows all incoming traffic from 192.168.2.15 in the trusted zone:
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5.8.5. Using Zones and Sources to Allow a Service for Only a Specific Domain
To allow traffic from a specific network to use a service on a machine, use zones and source.
For example, to allow traffic from 192.168.1.0/24 to be able to reach the HTTP service while any other
traffic is blocked:
2. Add the source to the trusted zone to route the traffic originating from the source through the
zone:
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5. Check that the trusted zone is active and that the service is allowed in it:
NOTE
To receive multicast traffic, use the igmp value with the --add-protocol option.
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2. Enable masquerade:
2. Disable masquerade:
NOTE
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NOTE
Redirecting ports using this method only works for IPv4-based traffic. For IPv6
redirecting setup, you need to use rich rules. For more information, see Section 5.15,
“Configuring Complex Firewall Rules with the "Rich Language" Syntax”.
Example 5.2. Removing TCP Port 80 forwarded to Port 88 on the Same Machine
The command prints yes with exit status 0 if enabled. It prints no with exit status 1 otherwise. If zone is
omitted, the default zone will be used.
To make this setting persistent, repeat the command adding the --permanent option.
To make this setting persistent, repeat the command adding the --permanent option.
The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a supporting protocol that is used by various
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The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a supporting protocol that is used by various
network devices to send error messages and operational information indicating a connection problem,
for example, that a requested service is not available. ICMP differs from transport protocols such as TCP
and UDP because it is not used to exchange data between systems.
Unfortunately, it is possible to use the ICMP messages, especially echo-request and echo-reply, to
reveal information about your network and misuse such information for various kinds of fraudulent
activities. Therefore, firewalld enables blocking the ICMP requests to protect your network information.
The ICMP requests are described in individual XML files that are located in the
/usr/lib/firewalld/icmptypes/ directory. You can read these files to see a description of the request. The
firewall-cmd command controls the ICMP requests manipulation.
The ICMP request can be used by IPv4, IPv6, or by both protocols. To see for which protocol the ICMP
request is used:
The status of an ICMP request shows yes if the request is currently blocked or no if it is not. To see if an
ICMP request is currently blocked:
When your server blocks ICMP requests, it does not provide the information that it normally would.
However, that does not mean that no information is given at all. The clients receive information that the
particular ICMP request is being blocked (rejected). Blocking the ICMP requests should be considered
carefully, because it can cause communication problems, especially with IPv6 traffic.
Normally, if you block ICMP requests, clients know that you are blocking it. So, a potential attacker who
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Normally, if you block ICMP requests, clients know that you are blocking it. So, a potential attacker who
is sniffing for live IP addresses is still able to see that your IP address is online. To hide this information
completely, you have to drop all ICMP requests.
Now, all traffic, including ICMP requests, is dropped, except traffic which you have explicitly allowed.
2. Add the ICMP block inversion to block all ICMP requests at once:
3. Add the ICMP block for those ICMP requests that you want to allow:
The block inversion inverts the setting of the ICMP requests blocks, so all requests, that were not
previously blocked, are blocked. Those that were blocked are not blocked. Which means that if you need
to unblock a request, you must use the blocking command.
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To enable or disable an ICMP filter, start the firewall-config tool and select the network zone whose
messages are to be filtered. Select the ICMP Filter tab and select the check box for each type of ICMP
message you want to filter. Clear the check box to disable a filter. This setting is per direction and the
default allows everything.
To edit an ICMP type, start the firewall-config tool and select Permanent mode from the menu labeled
Configuration. Additional icons appear at the bottom of the Services window. Select Yes in the
following dialog to enable masquerading and to make forwarding to another machine working.
To enable inverting the ICMP Filter, click the Invert Filter check box on the right. Only marked ICMP
types are now accepted, all other are rejected. In a zone using the DROP target, they are dropped.
To list the IP sets known to firewalld in the permanent environment, use the following command as root:
To add a new IP set, use the following command using the permanent environment as root:
The previous command creates a new IP set with the name test and the hash:net type for IPv4. To
create an IP set for use with IPv6, add the --option=family=inet6 option. To make the new setting
effective in the runtime environment, reload firewalld. List the new IP set with the following command
as root:
To get more information about the IP set, use the following command as root:
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type: hash:net
options:
entries:
Note that the IP set does not have any entries at the moment. To add an entry to the test IP set, use the
following command as root:
The previous command adds the IP address 192.168.0.1 to the IP set. To get the list of current entries in
the IP set, use the following command as root:
The file with the list of IP addresses for an IP set should contain an entry per line. Lines starting with a
hash, a semi-colon, or empty lines are ignored.
To add the addresses from the iplist.txt file, use the following command as root:
To see the extended entries list of the IP set, use the following command as root:
To remove the addresses from the IP set and to check the updated entries list, use the following
commands as root:
You can add the IP set as a source to a zone to handle all traffic coming in from any of the addresses
listed in the IP set with a zone. For example, to add the test IP set as a source to the drop zone to drop
all packets coming from all entries listed in the test IP set, use the following command as root:
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The ipset: prefix in the source shows firewalld that the source is an IP set and not an IP address or an
address range.
Only the creation and removal of IP sets is limited to the permanent environment, all other IP set
options can be used also in the runtime environment without the --permanent option.
~]# vi /etc/systemd/system/ipset_name.service
[Unit]
Description=ipset_name
Before=firewalld.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ipset_name.sh start
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/ipset_name.sh stop
[Install]
WantedBy=basic.target
~]# vi /etc/firewalld/direct.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<direct>
<rule ipv="ipv4" table="filter" chain="INPUT" priority="0">-m set --match-set
<replaceable>ipset_name</replaceable> src -j DROP</rule>
</direct>
This reloads the firewall without losing state information (TCP sessions will not be terminated),
but service disruption is possible during the reload.
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WARNING
Red Hat does not recommend using IP sets that are not managed through
firewalld. To use such IP sets, a permanent direct rule is required to reference the
set, and a custom service must be added to create these IP sets. This service needs
to be started before firewalld starts, otherwise firewalld is not able to add the
direct rules using these sets. You can add permanent direct rules with the
/etc/firewalld/direct.xml file.
With the iptables service, every single change means flushing all the old rules and reading all
the new rules from /etc/sysconfig/iptables, while with firewalld there is no recreating of all the
rules. Only the differences are applied. Consequently, firewalld can change the settings during
runtime without existing connections being lost.
To use the iptables and ip6tables services instead of firewalld, first disable firewalld by running the
following command as root:
Then install the iptables-services package by entering the following command as root:
The iptables-services package contains the iptables service and the ip6tables service.
Then, to start the iptables and ip6tables services, enter the following commands as root:
To enable the services to start on every system start, enter the following commands:
The ipset utility is used to administer IP sets in the Linux kernel. An IP set is a framework for storing IP
addresses, port numbers, IP and MAC address pairs, or IP address and port number pairs. The sets are
indexed in such a way that very fast matching can be made against a set even when the sets are very
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large. IP sets enable simpler and more manageable configurations as well as providing performance
advantages when using iptables. The iptables matches and targets referring to sets create references
which protect the given sets in the kernel. A set cannot be destroyed while there is a single reference
pointing to it.
The use of ipset enables iptables commands, such as those below, to be replaced by a set:
If the set is used more than once a saving in configuration time is made. If the set contains many entries
a saving in processing time is made.
It is dangerous to use the direct interface if you are not very familiar with iptables as you could
inadvertently cause a breach in the firewall.
The direct interface mode is intended for services or applications to add specific firewall rules during
runtime. The rules can be made permanent by adding the --permanent option using the firewall-cmd --
permanent --direct command or by modifying /etc/firewalld/direct.xml. See man firewalld.direct(5) for
information on the /etc/firewalld/direct.xml file.
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Note that this command (the --get-rules option) only lists rules previously added using the --add-rule
option. It does not list existing iptables rules added by other means.
This will add a rich language rule rule for zone zone. This option can be specified multiple times. If the
zone is omitted, the default zone is used. If a timeout is supplied, the rule or rules only stay active for the
amount of time specified and will be removed automatically afterwards. The time value can be followed
by s (seconds), m (minutes), or h (hours) to specify the unit of time. The default is seconds.
To remove a rule:
This will remove a rich language rule rule for zone zone. This option can be specified multiple times. If the
zone is omitted, the default zone is used.
This will return whether a rich language rule rule has been added for the zone zone. The command prints
yes with exit status 0 if enabled. It prints no with exit status 1 otherwise. If the zone is omitted, the
default zone is used.
For information about the rich language representation used in the zone configuration files, see the
firewalld.zone(5) man page.
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NOTE
The structure of the rich rule in the file uses the NOT keyword to invert the sense of the
source and destination address commands, but the command line uses the invert="true"
option.
A rule is associated with a particular zone. A zone can have several rules. If some rules interact or
contradict, the first rule that matches the packet applies.
source
By specifying the source address, the origin of a connection attempt can be limited to the source
address. A source address or address range is either an IP address or a network IP address with a
mask for IPv4 or IPv6. For IPv4, the mask can be a network mask or a plain number. For IPv6, the
mask is a plain number. The use of host names is not supported. It is possible to invert the sense of
the source address command by adding the NOT keyword; all but the supplied address matches.
A MAC address and also an IP set with type hash:mac can be added for IPv4 and IPv6 if no family is
specified for the rule. Other IP sets need to match the family setting of the rule.
destination
By specifying the destination address, the target can be limited to the destination address. The
destination address uses the same syntax as the source address for IP address or address ranges.
The use of source and destination addresses is optional, and the use of a destination addresses is
not possible with all elements. This depends on the use of destination addresses, for example, in
service entries. You can combine destination and action.
Elements
The element can be only one of the following element types: service, port, protocol, masquerade,
icmp-block, forward-port, and source-port.
service
The service element is one of the firewalld provided services. To get a list of the predefined
services, enter the following command:
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If a service provides a destination address, it will conflict with a destination address in the rule and will
result in an error. The services using destination addresses internally are mostly services using
multicast. The command takes the following form:
service name=service_name
port
The port element can either be a single port number or a port range, for example, 5060-5062,
followed by the protocol, either as tcp or udp. The command takes the following form:
protocol
The protocol value can be either a protocol ID number or a protocol name. For allowed protocol
entries, see /etc/protocols. The command takes the following form:
protocol value=protocol_name_or_ID
icmp-block
Use this command to block one or more ICMP types. The ICMP type is one of the ICMP types
firewalld supports. To get a listing of supported ICMP types, enter the following command:
Specifying an action is not allowed here. icmp-block uses the action reject internally. The command
takes the following form:
icmp-block name=icmptype_name
masquerade
Turns on IP masquerading in the rule. A source address can be provided to limit masquerading to this
area, but not a destination address. Specifying an action is not allowed here.
forward-port
Forward packets from a local port with protocol specified as tcp or udp to either another port locally,
to another machine, or to another port on another machine. The port and to-port can either be a
single port number or a port range. The destination address is a simple IP address. Specifying an
action is not allowed here. The forward-port command uses the action accept internally. The
command takes the following form:
source-port
Matches the source port of the packet - the port that is used on the origin of a connection attempt.
To match a port on current machine, use the port element. The source-port element can either be a
single port number or a port range (for example, 5060-5062) followed by the protocol as tcp or udp.
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Logging
log
Log new connection attempts to the rule with kernel logging, for example, in syslog. You can define a
prefix text that will be added to the log message as a prefix. Log level can be one of emerg, alert,
crit, error, warning, notice, info, or debug. The use of log is optional. It is possible to limit logging as
follows:
The rate is a natural positive number [1, ..], with the duration of s, m, h, d. s means seconds, m means
minutes, h means hours, and d days. The maximum limit value is 1/d, which means at maximum one
log entry per day.
audit
Audit provides an alternative way for logging using audit records sent to the service auditd. The audit
type can be one of ACCEPT, REJECT, or DROP, but it is not specified after the command audit as
the audit type will be automatically gathered from the rule action. Audit does not have its own
parameters, but limit can be added optionally. The use of audit is optional.
Action
accept|reject|drop|mark
An action can be one of accept, reject, drop, or mark. The rule can only contain an element or a
source. If the rule contains an element, then new connections matching the element will be handled
with the action. If the rule contains a source, then everything from the source address will be handled
with the action specified.
With accept, all new connection attempts will be granted. With reject, they will be rejected and their
source will get a reject message. The reject type can be set to use another value. With drop, all
packets will be dropped immediately and no information is sent to the source. With mark all packets
will be marked with the given mark and the optional mask.
zone_log
zone_deny
zone_allow
All logging rules will be placed in the “zone_log” chain, which will be parsed first. All reject and drop rules
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All logging rules will be placed in the “zone_log” chain, which will be parsed first. All reject and drop rules
will be placed in the “zone_deny” chain, which will be parsed after the log chain. All accept rules will be
placed in the “zone_allow” chain, which will be parsed after the deny chain. If a rule contains log and also
deny or allow actions, the parts of the rule that specify these actions are placed in the matching chains.
Enable new IPv4 and IPv6 connections for authentication header protocol AH:
Allow new IPv4 and IPv6 connections for protocol FTP and log 1 per minute using audit:
Allow new IPv4 connections from address 192.168.0.0/24 for protocol TFTP and log 1 per minute using
syslog:
New IPv6 connections from 1:2:3:4:6:: for protocol RADIUS are all rejected and logged at a rate of 3
per minute. New IPv6 connections from other sources are accepted:
Forward IPv6 packets received from 1:2:3:4:6:: on port 4011 with protocol TCP to 1::2:3:4:7 on port
4012.
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Local applications or services are able to change the firewall configuration if they are running as root (for
example, libvirt). With this feature, the administrator can lock the firewall configuration so that either no
applications or only applications that are added to the lockdown whitelist are able to request firewall
changes. The lockdown settings default to disabled. If enabled, the user can be sure that there are no
unwanted configuration changes made to the firewall by local applications or services.
The command prints yes with exit status 0 if lockdown is enabled. It prints no with exit status 1
otherwise.
The context is the security (SELinux) context of a running application or service. To get the context of a
running application use the following command:
~]$ ps -e --context
That command returns all running applications. Pipe the output through the grep tool to get the
application of interest. For example:
To list all command lines that are on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To add a command command to the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To remove a command command from the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To query whether the command command is on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
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The command prints yes with exit status 0 if true. It prints no with exit status 1 otherwise.
To list all security contexts that are on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To add a context context to the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To remove a context context from the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To query whether the context context is on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
Prints yes with exit status 0, if true, prints no with exit status 1 otherwise.
To list all user IDs that are on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To add a user ID uid to the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To remove a user ID uid from the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To query whether the user ID uid is on the whitelist, enter the following command:
Prints yes with exit status 0, if true, prints no with exit status 1 otherwise.
To list all user names that are on the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To add a user name user to the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
To remove a user name user from the whitelist, enter the following command as root:
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To query whether the user name user is on the whitelist, enter the following command:
Prints yes with exit status 0, if true, prints no with exit status 1 otherwise.
Following is an example whitelist configuration file enabling all commands for the firewall-cmd utility, for
a user called user whose user ID is 815:
This example shows both user id and user name, but only one option is required. Python is the
interpreter and is prepended to the command line. You can also use a specific command, for example:
NOTE
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, all utilities are placed in the /usr/bin/ directory and the
/bin/ directory is sym-linked to the /usr/bin/ directory. In other words, although the path
for firewall-cmd when run as root might resolve to /bin/firewall-cmd, /usr/bin/firewall-
cmd can now be used. All new scripts should use the new location. But be aware that if
scripts that run as root have been written to use the /bin/firewall-cmd path, then that
command path must be whitelisted in addition to the /usr/bin/firewall-cmd path
traditionally used only for non-root users.
The “*” at the end of the name attribute of a command means that all commands that
start with this string will match. If the “*” is not there then the absolute command
including arguments must match.
With the LogDenied option in the firewalld, it is possible to add a simple logging mechanism for denied
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With the LogDenied option in the firewalld, it is possible to add a simple logging mechanism for denied
packets. These are the packets that are rejected or dropped. To change the setting of the logging, edit
the /etc/firewalld/firewalld.conf file or use the command-line or GUI configuration tool.
If LogDenied is enabled, logging rules are added right before the reject and drop rules in the INPUT,
FORWARD and OUTPUT chains for the default rules and also the final reject and drop rules in zones.
The possible values for this setting are: all, unicast, broadcast, multicast, and off. The default setting is
off. With the unicast, broadcast, and multicast setting, the pkttype match is used to match the link-
layer packet type. With all, all packets are logged.
To list the actual LogDenied setting with firewall-cmd, use the following command as root:
To change the LogDenied setting with the firewalld GUI configuration tool, start firewall-config, click
the Options menu and select Change Log Denied. The LogDenied window appears. Select the new
LogDenied setting from the menu and click OK.
firewall-cmd(1) man page — Describes command options for the firewalld command-line client.
firewall-offline-cmd(1) man page — Describes command options for the firewalld offline
command-line client.
firewalld.icmptype(5) man page — Describes XML configuration files for ICMP filtering.
firewalld.ipset(5) man page — Describes XML configuration files for the firewalld IP sets.
firewalld.service(5) man page — Describes XML configuration files for firewalld service.
firewalld.zone(5) man page — Describes XML configuration files for firewalld zone
configuration.
firewalld.direct(5) man page — Describes the firewalld direct interface configuration file.
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firewalld.richlanguage(5) man page — Describes the firewalld rich language rule syntax.
firewalld.zones(5) man page — General description of what zones are and how to configure
them.
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The following list summarizes some of the information that Audit is capable of recording in its log files:
Association of an event with the identity of the user who triggered the event.
All modifications to Audit configuration and attempts to access Audit log files.
Include or exclude events based on user identity, subject and object labels, and other attributes.
The use of the Audit system is also a requirement for a number of security-related certifications. Audit is
designed to meet or exceed the requirements of the following certifications or compliance guides:
Evaluated by National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) and Best Security Industries
(BSI).
Use Cases
Watching file access
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NOTE
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Once a system call passes the exclude filter, it is sent through one of the aforementioned filters, which,
based on the Audit rule configuration, sends it to the Audit daemon for further processing.
The user-space Audit daemon collects the information from the kernel and creates entries in a log file.
Other Audit user-space utilities interact with the Audit daemon, the kernel Audit component, or the
Audit log files:
audisp — the Audit dispatcher daemon interacts with the Audit daemon and sends events to
other applications for further processing. The purpose of this daemon is to provide a plug-in
mechanism so that real-time analytical programs can interact with Audit events.
auditctl — the Audit control utility interacts with the kernel Audit component to manage rules
and to control a number of settings and parameters of the event generation process.
The remaining Audit utilities take the contents of the Audit log files as input and generate
output based on user's requirements. For example, the aureport utility generates a report of all
recorded events.
The default auditd configuration should be suitable for most environments. However, if your
environment has to meet strict security policies, the following settings are suggested for the Audit
daemon configuration in the /etc/audit/auditd.conf file:
log_file
The directory that holds the Audit log files (usually /var/log/audit/) should reside on a separate
mount point. This prevents other processes from consuming space in this directory, and provides
accurate detection of the remaining space for the Audit daemon.
max_log_file
Specifies the maximum size of a single Audit log file, must be set to make full use of the available
space on the partition that holds the Audit log files.
max_log_file_action
Decides what action is taken once the limit set in max_log_file is reached, should be set to
keep_logs to prevent Audit log files from being overwritten.
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space_left
Specifies the amount of free space left on the disk for which an action that is set in the
space_left_action parameter is triggered. Must be set to a number that gives the administrator
enough time to respond and free up disk space. The space_left value depends on the rate at which
the Audit log files are generated.
space_left_action
It is recommended to set the space_left_action parameter to email or exec with an appropriate
notification method.
admin_space_left
Specifies the absolute minimum amount of free space for which an action that is set in the
admin_space_left_action parameter is triggered, must be set to a value that leaves enough space
to log actions performed by the administrator.
admin_space_left_action
Should be set to single to put the system into single-user mode and allow the administrator to free
up some disk space.
disk_full_action
Specifies an action that is triggered when no free space is available on the partition that holds the
Audit log files, must be set to halt or single. This ensures that the system is either shut down or
operating in single-user mode when Audit can no longer log events.
disk_error_action
Specifies an action that is triggered in case an error is detected on the partition that holds the Audit
log files, must be set to syslog, single, or halt, depending on your local security policies regarding
the handling of hardware malfunctions.
flush
Should be set to incremental_async. It works in combination with the freq parameter, which
determines how many records can be sent to the disk before forcing a hard synchronization with the
hard drive. The freq parameter should be set to 100. These parameters assure that Audit event data
is synchronized with the log files on the disk while keeping good performance for bursts of activity.
The remaining configuration options should be set according to your local security policy.
NOTE
The service command is the only way to correctly interact with the auditd daemon. You
need to use the service command so that the auid value is properly recorded. You can
use the systemctl command only for two actions: enable and status.
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A number of other actions can be performed on auditd using the service auditd action command,
where action can be one of the following:
stop
Stops auditd.
restart
Restarts auditd.
reload or force-reload
Reloads the configuration of auditd from the /etc/audit/auditd.conf file.
rotate
Rotates the log files in the /var/log/audit/ directory.
resume
Resumes logging of Audit events after it has been previously suspended, for example, when there is
not enough free space on the disk partition that holds the Audit log files.
condrestart or try-restart
Restarts auditd only if it is already running.
status
Displays the running status of auditd.
Control rules
Allow the Audit system's behavior and some of its configuration to be modified.
on the command line using the auditctl utility. Note that these rules are not persistent across
reboots. For details, see Section 6.5.1, “Defining Audit Rules with auditctl”
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in the /etc/audit/audit.rules file. For details, see Section 6.5.3, “Defining Persistent Audit Rules
and Controls in the /etc/audit/audit.rules File”
NOTE
All commands which interact with the Audit service and the Audit log files require root
privileges. Ensure you execute these commands as the root user. Additionally,
CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL is required to set up audit services and CAP_AUDIT_WRITE is
required to log user messages.
-b
sets the maximum amount of existing Audit buffers in the kernel, for example:
-f
sets the action that is performed when a critical error is detected, for example:
~]# auditctl -f 2
-e
enables and disables the Audit system or locks its configuration, for example:
~]# auditctl -e 2
-r
sets the rate of generated messages per second, for example:
~]# auditctl -r 0
-s
reports the status of the Audit system, for example:
~]# auditctl -s
AUDIT_STATUS: enabled=1 flag=2 pid=0 rate_limit=0 backlog_limit=8192 lost=259 backlog=0
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-l
lists all currently loaded Audit rules, for example:
~]# auditctl -l
-w /etc/passwd -p wa -k passwd_changes
-w /etc/selinux -p wa -k selinux_changes
-w /sbin/insmod -p x -k module_insertion
⋮
-D
deletes all currently loaded Audit rules, for example:
~]# auditctl -D
No rules
where:
key_name is an optional string that helps you identify which rule or a set of rules generated a
particular log entry.
To define a rule that logs all write access to, and every attribute change of, the /etc/passwd file,
execute the following command:
To define a rule that logs all write access to, and every attribute change of, all the files in the
/etc/selinux/ directory, execute the following command:
To define a rule that logs the execution of the /sbin/insmod command, which inserts a module into
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To define a rule that logs the execution of the /sbin/insmod command, which inserts a module into
the Linux kernel, execute the following command:
where:
action and filter specify when a certain event is logged. action can be either always or never.
filter specifies which kernel rule-matching filter is applied to the event. The rule-matching filter
can be one of the following: task, exit, user, and exclude. For more information about these
filters, see the beginning of Section 6.1, “Audit System Architecture”.
system_call specifies the system call by its name. A list of all system calls can be found in the
/usr/include/asm/unistd_64.h file. Several system calls can be grouped into one rule, each
specified after its own -S option.
field=value specifies additional options that further modify the rule to match events based on a
specified architecture, group ID, process ID, and others. For a full listing of all available field
types and their values, see the auditctl(8) man page.
key_name is an optional string that helps you identify which rule or a set of rules generated a
particular log entry.
To define a rule that creates a log entry every time the adjtimex or settimeofday system calls are
used by a program, and the system uses the 64-bit architecture, execute the following command:
To define a rule that creates a log entry every time a file is deleted or renamed by a system user
whose ID is 1000 or larger, execute the following command:
Note that the -F auid!=4294967295 option is used to exclude users whose login UID is not set.
It is also possible to define a file system rule using the system call rule syntax. The following
command creates a rule for system calls that is analogous to the -w /etc/shadow -p wa file system
rule:
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where:
action and filter specify when a certain event is logged. action can be either always or never.
filter specifies which kernel rule-matching filter is applied to the event. The rule-matching filter
can be one of the following: task, exit, user, and exclude. For more information about these
filters, see the beginning of Section 6.1, “Audit System Architecture”.
system_call specifies the system call by its name. A list of all system calls can be found in the
/usr/include/asm/unistd_64.h file. Several system calls can be grouped into one rule, each
specified after its own -S option.
key_name is an optional string that helps you identify which rule or a set of rules generated a
particular log entry.
To define a rule that logs all execution of the /bin/id program, execute the following command:
6.5.3. Defining Persistent Audit Rules and Controls in the /etc/audit/audit.rules File
To define Audit rules that are persistent across reboots, you must either directly include them in the
/etc/audit/audit.rules file or use the augenrules program that reads rules located in the
/etc/audit/rules.d/ directory. The /etc/audit/audit.rules file uses the same auditctl command line syntax
to specify the rules. Empty lines and text following a hash sign (#) are ignored.
The auditctl command can also be used to read rules from a specified file using the -R option, for
example:
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-w /etc/passwd -p wa -k passwd_changes
-w /etc/selinux/ -p wa -k selinux_changes
-w /sbin/insmod -p x -k module_insertion
30-nispom.rules — Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements specified in the
Information System Security chapter of the National Industrial Security Program Operating
Manual.
30-pci-dss-v31.rules — Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements set by Payment
Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) v3.1.
To use these configuration files, create a backup of your original /etc/audit/audit.rules file and copy the
configuration file of your choice over the /etc/audit/audit.rules file:
NOTE
The Audit rules have a numbering scheme that allows them to be ordered. To learn more
about the naming scheme, see the /usr/share/doc/audit/rules/README-rules file.
The augenrules script reads rules located in the /etc/audit/rules.d/ directory and compiles them into an
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The augenrules script reads rules located in the /etc/audit/rules.d/ directory and compiles them into an
audit.rules file. This script processes all files that ends in .rules in a specific order based on their natural
sort order. The files in this directory are organized into groups with following meanings:
20 - Rules that could match general rules but you want a different match
30 - Main rules
40 - Optional rules
50 - Server-specific rules
90 - Finalize (immutable)
The rules are not meant to be used all at once. They are pieces of a policy that should be thought out
and individual files copied to /etc/audit/rules.d/. For example, to set a system up in the STIG
configuration, copy rules 10-base-config, 30-stig, 31-privileged, and 99-finalize.
Once you have the rules in the /etc/audit/rules.d/ directory, load them by running the augenrules script
with the --load directive:
For more information on the Audit rules and the augenrules script, see the audit.rules(8) and
augenrules(8) man pages.
The following Audit rule logs every attempt to read or modify the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:
If the auditd daemon is running, for example, using the following command creates a new event in the
Audit log file:
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The above event consists of four records, which share the same time stamp and serial number. Records
always start with the type= keyword. Each record consists of several name=value pairs separated by a
white space or a comma. A detailed analysis of the above event follows:
First Record
type=SYSCALL
The type field contains the type of the record. In this example, the SYSCALL value specifies that this
record was triggered by a system call to the kernel.
For a list of all possible type values and their explanations, see Audit Record Types.
msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287):
The msg field records:
a time stamp and a unique ID of the record in the form audit(time_stamp:ID). Multiple
records can share the same time stamp and ID if they were generated as part of the same
Audit event. The time stamp is using the Unix time format - seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on
1 January 1970.
various event-specific name=value pairs provided by the kernel or user space applications.
arch=c000003e
The arch field contains information about the CPU architecture of the system. The value, c000003e,
is encoded in hexadecimal notation. When searching Audit records with the ausearch command, use
the -i or --interpret option to automatically convert hexadecimal values into their human-readable
equivalents. The c000003e value is interpreted as x86_64.
syscall=2
The syscall field records the type of the system call that was sent to the kernel. The value, 2, can be
matched with its human-readable equivalent in the /usr/include/asm/unistd_64.h file. In this case, 2
is the open system call. Note that the ausyscall utility allows you to convert system call numbers to
their human-readable equivalents. Use the ausyscall --dump command to display a listing of all
system calls along with their numbers. For more information, see the ausyscall(8) man page.
success=no
The success field records whether the system call recorded in that particular event succeeded or
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The success field records whether the system call recorded in that particular event succeeded or
failed. In this case, the call did not succeed.
exit=-13
The exit field contains a value that specifies the exit code returned by the system call. This value
varies for different system call. You can interpret the value to its human-readable equivalent with the
following command:
Note that the previous example assumes that your Audit log contains an event that failed with exit
code -13.
items=1
The items field contains the number of PATH auxiliary records that follow the syscall record.
ppid=2686
The ppid field records the Parent Process ID (PPID). In this case, 2686 was the PPID of the parent
process such as bash.
pid=3538
The pid field records the Process ID (PID). In this case, 3538 was the PID of the cat process.
auid=1000
The auid field records the Audit user ID, that is the loginuid. This ID is assigned to a user upon login
and is inherited by every process even when the user's identity changes, for example, by switching
user accounts with the su - john command.
uid=1000
The uid field records the user ID of the user who started the analyzed process. The user ID can be
interpreted into user names with the following command: ausearch -i --uid UID.
gid=1000
The gid field records the group ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
euid=1000
The euid field records the effective user ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
suid=1000
The suid field records the set user ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
fsuid=1000
The fsuid field records the file system user ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
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egid=1000
The egid field records the effective group ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
sgid=1000
The sgid field records the set group ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
fsgid=1000
The fsgid field records the file system group ID of the user who started the analyzed process.
tty=pts0
The tty field records the terminal from which the analyzed process was invoked.
ses=1
The ses field records the session ID of the session from which the analyzed process was invoked.
comm="cat"
The comm field records the command-line name of the command that was used to invoke the
analyzed process. In this case, the cat command was used to trigger this Audit event.
exe="/bin/cat"
The exe field records the path to the executable that was used to invoke the analyzed process.
subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
The subj field records the SELinux context with which the analyzed process was labeled at the time
of execution.
key="sshd_config"
The key field records the administrator-defined string associated with the rule that generated this
event in the Audit log.
Second Record
type=CWD
In the second record, the type field value is CWD — current working directory. This type is used to
record the working directory from which the process that invoked the system call specified in the
first record was executed.
The purpose of this record is to record the current process's location in case a relative path winds up
being captured in the associated PATH record. This way the absolute path can be reconstructed.
msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287)
The msg field holds the same time stamp and ID value as the value in the first record. The time
stamp is using the Unix time format - seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970.
cwd="/home/user_name"
The cwd field contains the path to the directory in which the system call was invoked.
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Third Record
type=PATH
In the third record, the type field value is PATH. An Audit event contains a PATH-type record for
every path that is passed to the system call as an argument. In this Audit event, only one path
(/etc/ssh/sshd_config) was used as an argument.
msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287):
The msg field holds the same time stamp and ID value as the value in the first and second record.
item=0
The item field indicates which item, of the total number of items referenced in the SYSCALL type
record, the current record is. This number is zero-based; a value of 0 means it is the first item.
name="/etc/ssh/sshd_config"
The name field records the path of the file or directory that was passed to the system call as an
argument. In this case, it was the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.
inode=409248
The inode field contains the inode number associated with the file or directory recorded in this
event. The following command displays the file or directory that is associated with the 409248 inode
number:
dev=fd:00
The dev field specifies the minor and major ID of the device that contains the file or directory
recorded in this event. In this case, the value represents the /dev/fd/0 device.
mode=0100600
The mode field records the file or directory permissions, encoded in numerical notation as returned
by the stat command in the st_mode field. See the stat(2) man page for more information. In this
case, 0100600 can be interpreted as -rw-------, meaning that only the root user has read and write
permissions to the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.
ouid=0
The ouid field records the object owner's user ID.
ogid=0
The ogid field records the object owner's group ID.
rdev=00:00
The rdev field contains a recorded device identifier for special files only. In this case, it is not used as
the recorded file is a regular file.
obj=system_u:object_r:etc_t:s0
The obj field records the SELinux context with which the recorded file or directory was labeled at the
time of execution.
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objtype=NORMAL
The objtype field records the intent of each path record's operation in the context of a given syscall.
cap_fp=none
The cap_fp field records data related to the setting of a permitted file system-based capability of
the file or directory object.
cap_fi=none
The cap_fi field records data related to the setting of an inherited file system-based capability of
the file or directory object.
cap_fe=0
The cap_fe field records the setting of the effective bit of the file system-based capability of the
file or directory object.
cap_fver=0
The cap_fver field records the version of the file system-based capability of the file or directory
object.
Fourth Record
type=PROCTITLE
The type field contains the type of the record. In this example, the PROCTITLE value specifies that
this record gives the full command-line that triggered this Audit event, triggered by a system call to
the kernel.
proctitle=636174002F6574632F7373682F737368645F636F6E666967
The proctitle field records the full command-line of the command that was used to invoke the
analyzed process. The field is encoded in hexadecimal notation to not allow the user to influence the
Audit log parser. The text decodes to the command that triggered this Audit event. When searching
Audit records with the ausearch command, use the -i or --interpret option to automatically convert
hexadecimal values into their human-readable equivalents. The
636174002F6574632F7373682F737368645F636F6E666967 value is interpreted as cat
/etc/ssh/sshd_config.
The Audit event analyzed above contains only a subset of all possible fields that an event can contain.
For a list of all event fields and their explanation, see Audit Event Fields. For a list of all event types and
their explanation, see Audit Record Types.
The following Audit event records a successful start of the auditd daemon. The ver field shows the
version of the Audit daemon that was started.
The following Audit event records a failed attempt of user with UID of 1000 to log in as the root user.
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To search the /var/log/audit/audit.log file for failed login attempts, use the following command:
To search for all account, group, and role changes, use the following command:
To search for all logged actions performed by a certain user, using the user's login ID (auid), use the
following command:
To search for all failed system calls from yesterday up until now, use the following command:
For a full listing of all ausearch options, see the ausearch(8) man page.
To generate a report for logged events in the past three days excluding the current example day, use
the following command:
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To generate a report of all executable file events, use the following command:
~]# aureport -x
To generate a summary of the executable file event report above, use the following command:
To generate a summary report of failed events for all users, use the following command:
To generate a summary report of all failed login attempts per each system user, use the following
command:
To generate a report from an ausearch query that searches all file access events for user ID 1000,
use the following command:
To generate a report of all Audit files that are queried and the time range of events they include, use
the following command:
~]# aureport -t
For a full listing of all aureport options, see the aureport(8) man page.
Online Sources
RHEL Audit System Refence: https://access.redhat.com/articles/4409591.
Installed Documentation
Documentation provided by the audit package can be found in the /usr/share/doc/audit/ directory.
Manual Pages
audispd.conf(5)
auditd.conf(5)
ausearch-expression(5)
audit.rules(7)
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audispd(8)
auditctl(8)
auditd(8)
aulast(8)
aulastlog(8)
aureport(8)
ausearch(8)
ausyscall(8)
autrace(8)
auvirt(8)
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The compliance policy can vary substantially across organizations and even across different systems
within the same organization. Differences among these policies are based on the purpose of these
systems and its importance for the organization. The custom software settings and deployment
characteristics also raise a need for custom policy checklists.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides tools that allow for fully automated compliance audit. These tools are
based on the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) standard and are designed for automated
tailoring of compliance policies.
Script Check Engine (SCE) — SCE is an extension to the SCAP protocol that allows
administrators to write their security content using a scripting language, such as Bash, Python, or
Ruby. The SCE extension is provided in the openscap-engine-sce package.
SCAP Security Guide (SSG) — The scap-security-guide package provides the latest collection
of security policies for Linux systems. The guidance consists of a catalog of practical hardening
advice, linked to government requirements where applicable. The project bridges the gap
between generalized policy requirements and specific implementation guidelines.
If you require performing automated compliance audits on multiple systems remotely, you can utilize
OpenSCAP solution for Red Hat Satellite. For more information see Section 7.8, “Using OpenSCAP with
Red Hat Satellite” and Section 7.10, “Additional Resources”.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux auditing capabilities are based on the Security Content Automation Protocol
(SCAP) standard. SCAP is a synthesis of interoperable specifications that standardize the format and
nomenclature by which software flaw and security configuration information is communicated, both to
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machines and humans. SCAP is a multi-purpose framework of specifications that supports automated
configuration, vulnerability and patch checking, technical control compliance activities, and security
measurement.
In other words, SCAP is a vendor-neutral way of expressing security policy, and as such it is widely used
in modern enterprises. SCAP specifications create an ecosystem where the format of security content is
well known and standardized while the implementation of the scanner or policy editor is not mandated.
Such a status enables organizations to build their security policy (SCAP content) once, no matter how
many security vendors do they employ.
The latest version of SCAP includes several underlying standards. These components are organized into
groups according to their function within SCAP as follows:
SCAP Components
Languages — This group consists of SCAP languages that define standard vocabularies and
conventions for expressing compliance policy.
Asset Identification (AI) — A language developed to provide a data model, methods, and
guidance for identifying security assets.
Asset Reporting Format (ARF) — A language designed to express the transport format of
information about collected security assets and the relationship between assets and
security reports.
Enumerations — This group includes SCAP standards that define naming format and an official
list or dictionary of items from certain security-related areas of interest.
Metrics — This group comprises of frameworks to identify and evaluate security risks.
Integrity — An SCAP specification to maintain integrity of SCAP content and scan results.
Trust Model for Security Automation Data (TMSAD) — A set of recommendations explaining
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Trust Model for Security Automation Data (TMSAD) — A set of recommendations explaining
usage of existing specification to represent signatures, hashes, key information, and identity
information in context of an XML file within a security automation domain.
Each of the SCAP components has its own XML-based document format and its XML name space. A
compliance policy expressed in SCAP can either take a form of a single OVAL definition XML file, data
stream file, single zip archive, or a set of separate XML files containing an XCCDF file that represents a
policy checklist.
The common way to represent a compliance policy is a set of XML files where one of the files is an
XCCDF checklist. This XCCDF file usually points to the assessment resources, multiple OVAL, OCIL and
the Script Check Engine (SCE) files. Furthermore, the file set can contain a CPE dictionary file and an
OVAL file defining objects for this dictionary.
Being an XML-based language, the XCCDF defines and uses a vast selection of XML elements and
attributes. The following list briefly introduces the main XCCDF elements; for more details about
XCCDF, consult the NIST Interagency Report 7275 Revision 4 .
<xccdf:Benchmark> — This is a root element that encloses the whole XCCDF document. It may
also contain checklist metadata, such as a title, description, list of authors, date of the latest
modification, and status of the checklist acceptance.
<xccdf:Rule> — This is a key element that represents a checklist requirement and holds its
description. It may contain child elements that define actions verifying or enforcing compliance
with the given rule or modify the rule itself.
<xccdf:Value> — This key element is used for expressing properties of other XCCDF elements
within the benchmark.
<xccdf:Group> — This element is used to organize an XCCDF document to structures with the
same context or requirement domains by gathering the <xccdf:Rule>, <xccdf:Value>, and
<xccdf:Group> elements.
<xccdf:Profile> — This element serves for a named tailoring of the XCCDF benchmark. It allows
the benchmark to hold several different tailorings. <xccdf:Profile> utilizes several selector
elements, such as <xccdf:select> or <xccdf:refine-rule>, to determine which elements are
going to be modified and processed while it is in effect.
<xccdf:Tailoring> — This element allows defining the benchmark profiles outside the
benchmark, which is sometimes desirable for manual tailoring of the compliance policy.
<xccdf:TestResult> — This element serves for keeping the scan results for the given
benchmark on the target system. Each <xccdf:TestResult> should refer to the profile that was
used to define the compliance policy for the particular scan and it should also contain important
information about the target system that is relevant for the scan.
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<xccdf:fix> — This is a child element of <xccdf:Rule> that serves for remediation of the target
system that is not compliant with the given rule. It can contain a command or script that is run on
the target system in order to bring the system into compliance the rule.
<xccdf:select> — This is a selector element that is used for including or excluding the chosen
rules or groups of rules from the policy.
<xccdf:set-value> — This is a selector element that is used for overwriting the current value of
the specified <xccdf:Value> element without modifying any of its other properties.
<xccdf:refine-value> — This is a selector element that is used for specifying constraints of the
particular <xccdf:Value> element during policy tailoring.
<xccdf:refine-rule> — This selector element allows overwriting properties of the selected rules.
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</fix>
<check system="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5">
<check-export value-id="xccdf_com.example.www_value_1"
export-name="oval:com.example.www:var:1"/>
<check-content-ref href="examplary.oval.xml"
name="oval:com.example.www:def:1"/>
</check>
<check system="http://open-scap.org/page/SCE">
<check-import import-name="stdout"/>
<check-content-ref href="telnet_server.sh"/>
</check>
</Rule>
</Group>
</Benchmark>
2. Analysis of the target system for the presence of a particular machine state.
3. Reporting the results of the comparison between the specified machine state and the observed
machine state.
Unlike other tools or custom scripts, the OVAL language describes a required state of resources in a
declarative manner. The OVAL language code is never executed directly, but by means of an OVAL
interpreter tool called scanner. The declarative nature of OVAL ensures that the state of the assessed
system is not accidentally modified, which is important because security scanners are often run with the
highest possible privileges.
OVAL specification is open for public comments and contribution and various IT companies collaborate
with the MITRE Corporation, federally funded not-for-profit organization. The OVAL specification is
continuously evolving and different editions are distinguished by a version number. The current version
5.11.1 was released in April 2015.
Like all other SCAP components, OVAL is based on XML. The OVAL standard defines several document
formats. Each of them includes different kind of information and serves a different purpose.
The OVAL Definitions format is the most common OVAL file format that is used directly for
system scans. The OVAL Definitions document describes the required state of the target
system.
The OVAL Variables format defines variables used to amend the OVAL Definitions document.
The OVAL Variables document is typically used in conjunction with the OVAL Definitions
document to tailor the security content for the target system at runtime.
The OVAL System Characteristics format holds information about the assessed system. The
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The OVAL System Characteristics format holds information about the assessed system. The
OVAL System Characteristics document is typically used to compare the actual state of the
system against the expected state defined by an OVAL Definitions document.
The OVAL Results is the most comprehensive OVAL format that is used to report results of the
system evaluation. The OVAL Results document typically contains copy of the evaluated OVAL
definitions, bound OVAL variables, OVAL system characteristics, and results of tests that are
computed based on comparison of the system characteristics and the definitions.
The OVAL Directives format is used to tailor verbosity of an OVAL Result document by either
including or excluding certain details.
The OVAL Common Model format contains definitions of constructs and enumerations used in
several other OVAL schemes. It is used to reuse OVAL definitions in order to avoid duplications
across multiple documents.
The OVAL Definitions document consists of a set of configuration requirements where each
requirement is defined in the following five basic sections: definitions, tests, objects, states, and
variables. The elements within the definitions section describe which of the tests shall be fulfilled to
satisfy the given definition. The test elements link objects and states together. During the system
evaluation, a test is considered passed when a resource of the assessed system that is denoted by the
given object element corresponds with the given state element. The variables section defines external
variables which may be used to adjust elements from the states section. Besides these sections, the
OVAL Definitions document typically contains also the generator and signature sections. The generator
section holds information about the document origin and various additional information related to its
content.
Each element from the OVAL document basic sections is unambiguously identified by an identifier in the
following form:
oval:namespace:type:ID
where namespace is a name space defining the identifier, type is either def for definitions elements, tst
for tests elements, obj for objects element, ste for states elements, and var for variables elements, and
ID is an integer value of the identifier.
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<affected family="unix">
<platform>Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7</platform>
</affected>
<reference ref_id="cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7"
source="CPE"/>
<description>
The operating system installed on the system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
</description>
</metadata>
<criteria>
<criterion comment="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is installed"
test_ref="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.rhel:tst:7"/>
</criteria>
</definition>
</definitions>
<tests>
<lin-def:rpminfo_test check_existence="at_least_one_exists"
id="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.rhel:tst:7"
version="1"
check="at least one"
comment="redhat-release is version 7">
<lin-def:object object_ref="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.redhat-release:obj:1"/>
<lin-def:state state_ref="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.rhel:ste:7"/>
</lin-def:rpminfo_test>
</tests>
<objects>
<lin-def:rpmverifyfile_object id="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.redhat-release:obj:1"
version="1">
<!-- This object represents rpm package which owns /etc/redhat-release file -->
<lin-def:behaviors nolinkto='true'
nomd5='true'
nosize='true'
nouser='true'
nogroup='true'
nomtime='true'
nomode='true'
nordev='true'
noconfigfiles='true'
noghostfiles='true' />
<lin-def:name operation="pattern match"/>
<lin-def:epoch operation="pattern match"/>
<lin-def:version operation="pattern match"/>
<lin-def:release operation="pattern match"/>
<lin-def:arch operation="pattern match"/>
<lin-def:filepath>/etc/redhat-release</lin-def:filepath>
</lin-def:rpmverifyfile_object>
</objects>
<states>
<lin-def:rpminfo_state id="oval:org.open-scap.cpe.rhel:ste:7"
version="1">
<lin-def:name operation="pattern match">^redhat-release</lin-def:name>
<lin-def:version operation="pattern match">^7[^\d]</lin-def:version>
</lin-def:rpminfo_state>
</states>
</oval_definitions>
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The data stream uses XML format that consists of a header formed by a table of contents and a list of
the <ds:component> elements. Each of these elements encompasses an SCAP component such as
XCCDF, OVAL, CPE, and other. The data stream file may contain multiple components of the same
type, and thus covering all security policies needed by your organization.
<ds:data-stream-collection xmlns:ds="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/scap/source/1.2"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:cat="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"
id="scap_org.open-scap_collection_from_xccdf_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml"
schematron-version="1.0">
<ds:data-stream id="scap_org.open-scap_datastream_from_xccdf_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml"
scap-version="1.2" use-case="OTHER">
<ds:dictionaries>
<ds:component-ref id="scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-dictionary.xml"
xlink:href="#scap_org.open-scap_comp_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-dictionary.xml">
<cat:catalog>
<cat:uri name="ssg-rhel7-cpe-oval.xml"
uri="#scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-oval.xml"/>
</cat:catalog>
</ds:component-ref>
</ds:dictionaries>
<ds:checklists>
<ds:component-ref id="scap_org.open-scap_cref_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml"
xlink:href="#scap_org.open-scap_comp_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml">
<cat:catalog>
<cat:uri name="ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"
uri="#scap_org.open-scap_cref_ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"/>
</cat:catalog>
</ds:component-ref>
</ds:checklists>
<ds:checks>
<ds:component-ref id="scap_org.open-scap_cref_ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"
xlink:href="#scap_org.open-scap_comp_ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"/>
<ds:component-ref id="scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-oval.xml"
xlink:href="#scap_org.open-scap_comp_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-oval.xml"/>
<ds:component-ref id="scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"
xlink:href="#scap_org.open-scap_comp_output--ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"/>
</ds:checks>
</ds:data-stream>
<ds:component id="scap_org.open-scap_comp_ssg-rhel7-oval.xml"
timestamp="2014-03-14T16:21:59">
<oval_definitions xmlns="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5"
xmlns:oval="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-common-5"
xmlns:ind="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#independent"
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xmlns:unix="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#unix"
xmlns:linux="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#linux"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-common-5
oval-common-schema.xsd
http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5
oval-definitions-schema.xsd
http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#independent
independent-definitions-schema.xsd
http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#unix
unix-definitions-schema.xsd
http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5#linux
linux-definitions-schema.xsd">
The following sections explain how to install, start, and utilize SCAP Workbench to perform system
scans, remediation, scan customization, and display relevant examples for these tasks.
This command installs all packages required by SCAP Workbench to function properly, including the
scap-workbench package that provides the utility itself. Note that required dependencies, such as the
qt and openssh packages, are automatically updated to the newest available version if the packages are
already installed on your system.
SCAP Workbench needs a security content to operate. Red Hat recommends to use the SCAP Security
Guide (SSG). The scap-security-guide package is installed as a SCAP Workbench dependency and it is
located in the /usr/share/xml/scap/ssg/content/ directory.
To find other possible sources of existing SCAP content that might suit your needs, see Section 7.10,
“Additional Resources”.
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As soon as you start the utility, the Open SCAP Security Guide window appears. After a selection one
of the guides, the SCAP Workbench window appears. This window consists of several interactive
components, which you should become familiar with before you start scanning your system:
File
This menu list offers several options to load or save a SCAP-related content. To show the initial
Open SCAP Security Guide window, click the menu item with the same name. Alternatively, load
another customization file in the XCCDF format by clicking Open Other Content. To save your
customization as an XCCDF XML file, use the Save Customization Only item. The Save All allows
you to save SCAP files either to the selected directory or as an RPM package.
Customization
This combo box informs you about the customization used for the given security policy. You can
select custom rules that are applied for the system evaluation by clicking this combo box. The
default value is (no customization), which means that there are no changes to the used security
policy. If you make any changes to the selected security profile, you can save those changes as an
XML file by clicking the Save Customization Only item in the File menu.
Profile
This combo box contains the name of the selected security profile. You can select the security profile
from a given XCCDF or data-stream file by clicking this combo box. To create a new profile that
inherits properties of the selected security profile, click the Customize button.
Target
The two radio buttons enable you to select whether the system to be evaluated is a local or remote
machine.
Rules
This field displays a list of security rules that are subject of the security policy. Expanding a particular
security rule provides detailed information about that rule.
Status bar
This is a graphical bar that indicates status of an operation that is being performed.
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available fixes for all rules in the currently selected profile. You can choose the output as a Bash
script, an Ansible playbook, or a Puppet manifest. A remediation performed during a system
evaluation is based on bash remediations.
This feature enables you to examine individual remediations and possibly edit or cherry-pick them.
Therefore, it puts you in full control over the remediation process.
Dry run
Use this check box to get command line arguments to the diagnostics window instead of running the
scan.
Remediate
This check box enables the remediation feature during the system evaluation. If you check this box,
SCAP Workbench attempts to correct system settings that failed to match the state defined by the
policy.
Scan
This button enables you to start the evaluation of the specified system.
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1. Select a security policy by using either the Open SCAP Security Guide window, or Open Other
Content in the File menu and search the respective XCCDF, SCAP RPM or data stream file.
WARNING
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2. To use a pre-arranged a file with customized security content specific to your use case, you can
load this file by clicking on the Customization combo box. You can also create a custom
tailoring file by altering an available security profile. For more information, see Section 7.3.4,
“Customizing Security Profiles”.
a. Select the (no customization) option if you do not want to use any customization for the
current system evaluation. This is the default option if no previous customization was
selected.
b. Select the (open customization file...) option to search for the particular tailoring file to be
used for the current system evaluation.
c. If you have previously used some customization file, SCAP Workbench remembers this file
and adds it to the list. This simplifies the repetitive application of the same scan.
a. To modify the selected profile, click the Customize button. For more information about
profile customization, see Section 7.3.4, “Customizing Security Profiles” .
4. Select either of two Target radio buttons to scan either a local or a remote machine.
a. If you have selected a remote system, specify it by entering the user name, host name, and
the port information as shown in the following example. If you have previously used the
remote scan, you can also select a remote system from a list of recently scanned machines.
5. You can allow automatic correction of the system configuration by selecting the Remediate
check box. With this option enabled, SCAP Workbench attempts to change the system
configuration in accordance with the security rules applied by the policy, should the related
checks fail during the system scan.
WARNING
If not used carefully, running the system evaluation with the remediation
option enabled could render the system non-functional.
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The Customization window contains a complete set of XCCDF elements relevant to the selected
security profile with detailed information about each element and its functionality. You can enable or
disable these elements by selecting or de-selecting the respective check boxes in the main field of this
window. The Customization window also supports undo and redo functionality; you can undo or redo
your selections by clicking the respective arrow icon in the top left corner of the window.
You can also change variables that will later be used for evaluation. Find the appropriate item in the
Customization window, navigate to the right part and use the Modify value field.
Figure 7.5. Setting a value for the selected item in the Customization window
After you have finished your profile customizations, confirm the changes by clicking the Confirm
Customization button. Your changes are now in the memory and do not persist if SCAP Workbench is
closed or certain changes, such as selecting a new SCAP content or choosing another customization
option, are made. To store your changes, click the Save Customization button in the SCAP
Workbench window. This action allows you to save your changes to the security profile as an XCCDF
customization file in the chosen directory. Note that this customization file can be further selected with
other profiles.
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By selecting the Save into a directory option, SCAP Workbench saves both the XCCDF or data-
stream file and the customization file to the specified location. This can be useful as a backup solution.
By selecting the Save as RPM option, you can instruct SCAP Workbench to create an RPM package
containing the XCCDF or data stream file and customization file. This is useful for distributing the
security content to systems that cannot be scanned remotely, or just for delivering the content for
further processing.
7.3.6. Viewing Scan Results and Generating Scan Reports and Remediations
After the system scan is finished, three new buttons, Clear, Save Results, Generate remediation role,
and Show Report will appear instead of the Scan button.
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WARNING
To store the scan results in the form of an XCCDF, ARF, or HTML file, click the Save Results combo
box. Choose the HTML Report option to generate the scan report in human-readable form. The XCCDF
and ARF (data stream) formats are suitable for further automatic processing. You can repeatedly
choose all three options.
If you prefer to view the scan results immediately without saving them, click the Show Report button,
which opens the scan results in the form of a temporary HTML file in your default web browser.
You can use the Generate remediation role pop-up menu to export results-based remediations to a
file. This functionality is very similar to the profile-based remediation role export — the difference is that
remediations for rules that pass the system evaluation are not exported, so the file may be smaller.
WARNING
The following sections explain how to install oscap and perform the most common operations.
Examples are provided to illustrate these tasks. To learn more about specific sub-commands, use the --
help option with an oscap command:
where module represents the type of SCAP content that is being processed, and module_operation is a
sub-command for the specific operation on the SCAP content.
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SDS - Source data stream that will be split into multiple files.
TARGET_DIRECTORY - Directory of the resulting files.
Options:
--datastream-id <id> - ID of the datastream in the collection to use.
--xccdf-id <id> - ID of XCCDF in the datastream that should be evaluated.
To learn about all oscap features and the complete list of its options, see the oscap(8) manual page.
This command enables you to install all packages required by oscap to function properly, including the
openscap package. To be able to write your own security content, you should also install the openscap-
engine-sce package, which provides the Script Check Engine (SCE). The SCE is an extension of the
SCAP protocol that allows content authors to write their security content using a scripting language,
such as Bash, Python, or Ruby. Note that the openscap-engine-sce package is only available from the
Optional channel. See Enabling Supplementary and Optional Repositories .
Optionally, after installing oscap, you can check the capabilities of your version of oscap, what
specifications it supports, where the certain oscap files are stored, what kinds of SCAP objects you can
use, and other useful information. To display this information, type the following command:
~]$ oscap -V
OpenSCAP command line tool (oscap) 1.0.4
Copyright 2009--2014 Red Hat Inc., Durham, North Carolina.
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Before you can start using oscap effectively, you also need to install or import some security content on
your system. For example, you can install the SCAP Security Guide (SSG) package, scap-security-guide,
which contains the currently most evolved and elaborate set of security polices for Linux systems. To
install the SCAP Security Guide package on your system, enter the following command as root:
After you install scap-security-guide on your system, unless specified otherwise, the SSG security
content is available under the /usr/share/xml/scap/ssg/content/ directory, and you can proceed with
other security compliance operations.
To find other possible sources of existing SCAP content that might suit your needs, see Section 7.10,
“Additional Resources”.
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After installing the SCAP content on your system, oscap can process the content when supplied with
the file path to the content. The oscap utility supports SCAP version 1.2 and is backward-compatible
with SCAP versions 1.1 and 1.0, so it can process earlier versions of SCAP content without any special
requirements.
enter the following command to examine the internal structure of a SCAP document and display useful
information such as the document type, specification version, a status of the document, the date the
document was published, and the date the document was copied to a file system:
where file is the full path to the security content file being examined. The following example better
illustrates the usage of the oscap info command:
Stream: scap_org.open-scap_datastream_from_xccdf_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml
Generated: (null)
Version: 1.2
Checklists:
Ref-Id: scap_org.open-scap_cref_ssg-rhel7-xccdf-1.2.xml
Profiles:
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_profile_test
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_profile_rht-ccp
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_profile_common
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_profile_stig-rhel7-server-upstream
Referenced check files:
ssg-rhel7-oval.xml
system: http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5
Checks:
Ref-Id: scap_org.open-scap_cref_ssg-rhel7-oval.xml
Ref-Id: scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-oval.xml
Ref-Id: scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-oval.xml
Dictionaries:
Ref-Id: scap_org.open-scap_cref_output--ssg-rhel7-cpe-dictionary.xml
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The oscap utility can scan systems against the SCAP content represented by both an XCCDF (The
eXtensible Configuration Checklist Description Format) benchmark and OVAL (Open Vulnerability and
Assessment Language) definitions. The security policy can be in the form of a single OVAL or XCCDF
file or multiple separate XML files where each file represents a different component (XCCDF, OVAL,
CPE, CVE, and others). The result of a scan can be printed to both standard output and an XML file. The
result file can then be further processed by oscap in order to generate a report in a human-readable
format. The following examples illustrate the most common usage of the command.
Example 7.6. Scanning the System Using the SSG OVAL definitions
To scan your system against the SSG OVAL definition file while evaluating all definitions, enter the
following command:
The results of the scan are stored as the scan-oval-results.xml file in the current directory.
Example 7.7. Scanning the System Using the SSG OVAL definitions
To evaluate a particular OVAL definition from the security policy represented by the SSG data
stream file, enter the following command:
The results of the scan are stored as the scan-oval-results.xml file in the current directory.
Example 7.8. Scanning the System Using the SSG XCCDF benchmark
The results of the scan are stored as the scan-xccdf-results.xml file in the current directory.
NOTE
The --profile command-line argument selects the security profile from the given
XCCDF or data stream file. The list of available profiles can be obtained by running
the oscap info command. If the --profile command-line argument is omitted the
default XCCDF profile is used as required by SCAP standard. Note that the default
XCCDF profile may or may not be an appropriate security policy.
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Another useful features of oscap is the ability to generate SCAP content in a human-readable format.
The oscap utility allows you to transform an XML file into the HTML or plain-text format. This feature is
used to generate security guides and checklists, which serve as a source of information, as well as
guidance for secure system configuration. The results of system scans can also be transformed to well-
readable result reports. The general command syntax is the following:
where module is either xccdf or oval, sub-module is a type of the generated document, and file
represents an XCCDF or OVAL file.
The following are the most common examples of the command usage:
To transform a result of an SSG OVAL scan into an HTML file, enter the following command:
The result report is stored as the ssg-scan-oval-report.html file in the current directory. This
example assumes that you run the command from the same location where the scan-oval-
results.xml file is stored. Otherwise you need to specify the fully-qualified path of the file that
contains the scan results.
To transform a result of an SSG XCCDF scan into an HTML file, enter the following command:
The result report is stored as the ssg-scan-xccdf-report.html file in the current directory.
Alternatively, you can generate this report in the time of the scan using the --report command-line
argument:
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Before you start using a security policy on your systems, you should first verify the policy in order to
avoid any possible syntax or semantic errors in the policy. The oscap utility can be used to validate the
security content against standard SCAP XML schemas. The validation results are printed to the
standard error stream (stderr). The general syntax of such a validation command is the following:
where file is the full path to the file being validated. The only exception is the data stream module (ds),
which uses the sds-validate operation instead of validate. Note that all SCAP components within the
given data stream are validated automatically and none of the components is specified separately, as
can be seen in the following example:
With certain SCAP content, such as OVAL specification, you can also perform a Schematron validation.
The Schematron validation is slower than the standard validation but provides deeper analysis, and is
thus able to detect more errors. The following SSG example shows typical usage of the command:
2. An assessment of the results is performed by evaluating the OVAL definitions. Each rule that
has failed is marked as a candidate for remediation.
3. OpenSCAP searches for an appropriate fix element, resolves it, prepares the environment, and
executes the fix script.
4. Any output of the fix script is captured by OpenSCAP and stored within the rule-result
element. The return value of the fix script is stored as well.
5. Whenever OpenSCAP executes a fix script, it immediatelly evaluates the OVAL definition again
(to verify that the fix script has been applied correctly). During this second run, if the OVAL
evaluation returns success, the result of the rule is fixed, otherwise it is an error.
6. Detailed results of the remediation are stored in an output XCCDF file. It contains two
TestResult elements. The first TestResult element represents the scan prior to the
remediation. The second TestResult is derived from the first one and contains remediation
results.
There are three modes of operation of OpenSCAP with regard to remediation: online, offline, and
review.
Online remediation executes fix elements at the time of scanning. Evaluation and remediation are
performed as a part of a single command.
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To enable online remediation, use the --remediate command-line option. For example, to execute
online remediation using the scap-security-guide package, run:
The output of this command consists of two sections. The first section shows the result of the scan prior
to the remediation, and the second section shows the result of the scan after applying the remediation.
The second part can contain only fixed and error results. The fixed result indicates that the scan
performed after the remediation passed. The error result indicates that even after applying the
remediation, the evaluation still does not pass.
Offline remediation allows you to postpone fix execution. In the first step, the system is only evaluated,
and the results are stored in a TestResult element in an XCCDF file.
In the second step, oscap executes the fix scripts and verifies the result. It is safe to store the results
into the input file, no data will be lost. During offline remediation, OpenSCAP creates a new TestResult
element that is based on the input one and inherits all the data. The newly created TestResult differs
only in the rule-result elements that have failed. For those, remediation is executed.
The review mode enables users to store remediation instructions to a file for further review. The
remediation content is not executed during this operation.
OpenSCAP enables you to output your XCCDF results to a format that is compatible with DISA STIG
Viewer. The transformation takes the attached STIG rule ID reference and replaces the XCCDF rule ID
with it.
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Example 7.12. Scanning a System for DISA STIG Compliance and Producing Results for STIG
Viewer
To scan a local system for DISA STIG compliance and produce XCCDF results that can be opened in
DISA STIG Viewer:
To view the XCCDF Results in DISA STIG Viewer, import the STIG of your choice first, and create a
checklist. With the checklist created, use the Import → XCCDF Result File menu item to fit your
results.
NOTE
Note that you can use any of the other oscap options with the --stig-viewer option to
export results with the usual rule IDs.
For more information about STIG, see the Security Technical Implementation Guides web page.
To learn more about sub-commands, use the --help option with the oscap-docker or oscap
commands.
NOTE
To enable the scanning of images and containers, install the docker package. See the Getting Docker in
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 chapter of the Getting Started with Containers guide for instructions on
installing Docker.
The following examples use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 image.
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# docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID
registry.access.redhat.com/rhel7 latest c453594215e4
Another, more flexible way, enables you to specify OVAL definitions when checking for
vulnerabilities. Use the image or container sub-command together with oscap arguments for
an OVAL evaluation. For example, to scan an image using a definitions file downloaded from
Red Hat OVAL repository , use the following command:
To verify compliance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 image with the Defense Information Systems
Agency Security Technical Implementation Guide (DISA STIG) policy, enter the following command:
The following command scans the running environment of the container with ID 5ef05eef4a01:
To get an XML file with results, use the --results argument and for generating an HTML report of an
evaluation, add the --report argument. See the oscap(8) man page for more information.
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For more information the atomic installation, see the Prerequisites in the Atomic CLI Reference .
After the atomic tool is installed, you also need a scanner, which is used by the atomic scan command as
a back end for scanning images and containers. Red Hat recommends choosing the OpenSCAP scanner
bundled in the rhel7/openscap container image in the registry.access.redhat.com image registry:
To scan the containers and container images, use the atomic scan command in the following form:
where ID is the ID of the container image or container. To scan all container images or containers, use
the --images or --containers directive, respectively. To scan both types, use the --all directive. The list
of available command-line options can be obtained using the atomic scan --help command.
NOTE
For a detailed description of the atomic command usage and containers, see the Product
Documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host. The Red Hat Customer Portal
also provides a guide to the Atomic command line interface (CLI) .
The default scan type of the atomic scan command is CVE scan. Use it for checking a target for known
security vulnerabilities as defined in the CVE OVAL definitions released by Red Hat .
WARNING
The OVAL definitions used by the CVE scan type are bundled in the container
image during the build process. Red Hat provides weekly updates of the container
image. Always use the latest OpenSCAP container image to ensure the definitions
are up to date. To find out version of the installed OpenSCAP container image:
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Example 7.13. Scanning Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Container Images for Known Security
Vulnerabilities
The following command scans the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 container image for known security
vulnerabilities. The --verbose directive provides additional details.
registry.access.redhat.com/rhel7:latest (db7a70a0414e589)
The following command scans the Red Enterprise Linux 7.2 container image with several known
security vulnerabilities:
registry.access.redhat.com/rhel7:7.2 (98a88a8b722a718)
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............
To list the SCAP content provided by the OpenSCAP image for the configuration_compliance scan,
enter the following command:
To verify compliance of the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 container image with the Defense
Information Systems Agency Security Technical Implementation Guide (DISA STIG) policy and generate
an HTML report from the scan:
The output of the previous command contains the information about files associated with the scan at
the end:
............
# tree /var/lib/atomic/openscap/2017-11-03-13-35-34-296606
/var/lib/atomic/openscap/2017-11-03-13-35-34-296606
├── db7a70a0414e589d7c8c162712b329d4fc670fa47ddde721250fb9fcdbed9cc2
│ ├── arf.xml
│ ├── fix.sh
│ ├── json
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│ └── report.html
└── environment.json
1 directory, 5 files
The atomic scan generates a subdirectory with all the results and reports from a scan in the
/var/lib/atomic/openscap/ directory. The arf.xml file with results is generated on every scanning for
configuration compliance. To generate a human-readable HTML report file, add the report suboption to
the --scanner_args option.
To generate XCCDF results readable by DISA STIG Viewer, add the stig-viewer suboption to the --
scanner_args option. The results are placed in stig.xml. For more information about DISA STIG Viewer,
see Section 7.4.7, “Exporting XCCDF Results for the DISA STIG Viewer”
The --scanner_args suboptions are separated by the comma character. The specific values for the
xccdf-id and profile suboptions, which select an XCCDF component and a profile from the specified
datastream file, are taken from the bundled SCAP content in the OpenSCAP image. The datastream file
is selected automatically by the OpenSCAP image during scanning based on the target container image
or container.
NOTE
When the xccdf-id suboption of the --scanner_args option is omitted, the scanner
searches for a profile in the first XCCDF component of the selected datastream file. For
more details about datastream files, see Section 7.2.3, “The Data Stream Format” .
registry.access.redhat.com/rhel7:latest (db7a70a0414e589)
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The configuration compliance scan is run against the original container image to check its compliance
with the DISA STIG policy. Based on the scan results, a fix script containing bash remediations for the
failed scan results is generated. The fix script is then applied to the original container image - this is
called a remediation. The remediation results in a container image with an altered configuration, which is
added as a new layer on top of the original container image. The output of the atomic scan command
reports a remediated image ID. To make the image easier to remember, tag it with some name, for
example:
IMPORTANT
Note that the original container image remains unchanged and only a new layer is created
on top of it. The remediation process builds a new container image that contains all the
configuration improvements. The content of this layer is defined by the security policy of
scanning - in the previous case, the DISA STIG policy. This also means that the
remediated container image is no longer signed by Red Hat, which is expected, since it
differs from the original container image by containing the remediated layer.
A playbook based on a SCAP Security Guide (SSG) profile contains fixes for all rules, and the system is
remediated according to the profile regardless of the state of the machine. On the other hand,
playbooks based on scan results contain only fixes for rules that failed during an evaluation.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, SSG provides pre-built Ansible playbooks for each profile and Red Hat
product. The playbooks are stored in the /usr/share/scap-security-guide/ansible/ directory.
To generate an Ansible playbook based on a profile (for example, the DISA STIG profile for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7), enter the following command:
To generate an Ansible playbook based on the results of a scan, enter the following command:
where the results.xml file contains results of the scan obtained when scanning with the --results option
and the result-id option contains an ID of the TestResult component in the file with results. To obtain
the ID of the TestResult component, use the oscap info command on the results.xml file:
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$ ansible-playbook playbook.yml
Note that the ansible-playbook command is provided by the ansible package. See the ansible-
playbook(1) man page and the Ansible Tower User Guide for more information.
Filtering Tasks
Tasks contained in playbooks are tagged with the same metadata as rules in an Extensible Configuration
Checklist Description Format (XCCDF) file. These tags refer to rule ID, strategy, complexity, disruption,
and references, and they can be used to filter the tasks to apply.
For example, to remediate only the rules from the PCI-DSS policy requirement 6.2, enter the following
command:
To remediate only high-severity rules from the RHEL7 OSPP playbook that are not highly disruptive,
enter the following command:
Customizing Playbooks
You can choose between two approaches to customize your playbooks. The first is to generate
playbooks from already customized profiles. This approach is better if a customization changes selected
rules.
The second approach is just to change the variables in a playbook. This is the Ansible way to customize a
playbook.
To generate Ansible playbooks for tailored profiles, use the --profile option to specify an ID of a
customized profile, and use the --tailoring-file option to indicate where a tailoring file is located. These
arguments are the same as when performing a scan using a tailored profile, for example:
To customize variables, use a text editor to edit a playbook. All used variables are listed at the beginning
of a playbook, located after the vars: string.
This solution supports two methods of performing security compliance scans, viewing and further
processing of the scan results. You can either use the OpenSCAP Satellite Web Interface or the
Satellite API. For more information about this solution to security compliance, its requirements and
capabilities, see the following Red Hat Satellite 6 documentation:
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Importing the Red Hat OVAL Repository in the Content Management Guide .
On Red Hat Satellite 5.5, install the spacewalk-oscap package on your Satellite client. See OpenSCAP in
RHN Satellite in the RHN Satellite 5.5 User Guide for more information.
The users of Red Hat Satellite 5 may find useful the XCCDF part of the patch definitions. To download
these definitions, enter the following command:
To audit security vulnerabilities for the software installed on the system, enter the following command:
The oscap utility maps Red Hat Security Advisories to CVE identifiers that are linked to the National
Vulnerability Database and reports which security advisories are not applied.
NOTE
Note that these OVAL definitions are designed to only cover software and updates
released by Red Hat. You need to provide additional definitions in order to detect the
patch status of third-party software.
A part of scap-security-guide is also a guidance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 settings. To inspect the
security content available with scap-security-guide, use the oscap info module:
The output of this command is an outline of the SSG document and it contains available configuration
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profiles. To audit your system settings, choose a suitable profile and run the appropriate evaluation
command. For example, the following command is used to assess the given system against a draft SCAP
profile for Red Hat Certified Cloud Providers:
Installed Documentation
oscap(8) — The manual page for the oscap command-line utility provides a complete list of
available options and their usage explanation.
scap-workbench(8) — The manual page for the SCAP Workbench application provides a basic
information about the application as well as some links to potential sources of SCAP content.
Online Documentation
The OpenSCAP project page — The home page to the OpenSCAP project provides detailed
information about the oscap utility and other components and projects related to SCAP.
The SCAP Workbench project page — The home page to the SCAP Workbench project provides
detailed information about the scap-workbench application.
The SCAP Security Guide (SSG) project page — The home page to the SSG project that
provides the latest security content for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SCAP page — This page represents a
vast collection of SCAP related materials, including SCAP publications, specifications, and the
SCAP Validation Program.
National Vulnerability Database (NVD) — This page represents the largest repository of SCAP
content and other SCAP standards based vulnerability management data.
Red Hat OVAL content repository — This is a repository containing OVAL definitions for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux systems.
MITRE CVE — This is a database of publicly known security vulnerabilities provided by the MITRE
corporation.
MITRE OVAL — This page represents an OVAL related project provided by the MITRE
corporation. Among other OVAL related information, these pages contain the latest version of
the OVAL language and a repository of OVAL content with thousands of OVAL definitions.
Red Hat Satellite documentation — This set of guides describes, among other topics, how to
maintain system security on multiple systems by using OpenSCAP.
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The FIPS 140-2 standard ensures that cryptographic tools implement their algorithms properly. See the
full FIPS 140-2 standard at http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.FIPS.140-2 for further details on these
levels and the other specifications of the FIPS standard.
IMPORTANT
Ensure that the system has plenty of entropy during the installation process by moving
the mouse around or by pressing many keystrokes. The recommended amount of
keystrokes is 256 and more. Less than 256 keystrokes might generate a non-unique key.
For CPUs with the AES New Instructions (AES-NI) support, install the dracut-fips-aesni
package as well:
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~]# dracut -v -f
To enable the in-module integrity verification and to have all required modules present during
the kernel boot, the initramfs file has to be regenerated.
WARNING
To boot into FIPS mode, add the fips=1 option to the kernel command line of the boot loader. If
your /boot or /boot/EFI/ partitions reside on separate partitions, add the boot=<partition>
(where <partition> stands for /boot) parameter to the kernel command line as well.
~]$ df /boot
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 495844 53780 416464 12% /boot
To ensure that the boot= configuration option works even if the device naming changes
between boots, identify the universally unique identifier (UUID) of the partition by running the
following command:
boot=UUID=05c000f1-f899-467b-a4d9-d5ca4424c797
GRUB 2
Add the fips=1 and boot=<partition of /boot> options to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX key
in the /etc/default/grub file. To apply the changes to /etc/default/grub, rebuild the grub.cfg
file as follows:
Add the fips=1 and boot=<partition of /boot> options to the /etc/zipl.conf to the kernel
command line and apply the changes by entering:
~]# zipl
For proper operation of the in-module integrity verification, prelinking of libraries and binaries
has to be disabled. Prelinking is done by the prelink package, which is not installed by default.
Unless prelink has been installed, this step is not needed. To disable prelinking, set the
PRELINKING=no option in the /etc/sysconfig/prelink configuration file. To disable existing
prelinking on all system files, use the prelink -u -a command.
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APPENDIX A. ENCRYPTION STANDARDS
AES was announced by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as U.S. FIPS PUB 197
(FIPS 197) on November 26, 2001 after a 5-year standardization process. Fifteen competing designs
were presented and evaluated before Rijndael was selected as the most suitable. It became effective as
a standard May 26, 2002. It is available in many different encryption packages. AES is the first publicly
accessible and open cipher approved by the NSA for top secret information (see the Security section in
the Wikipedia article on AES).[4]
The Rijndael cipher was developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen,
and submitted by them to the AES selection process. Rijndael is a portmanteau of the names of the two
inventors.[5]
DES is now considered to be insecure for many applications. This is chiefly due to the 56-bit key size
being too small; in January, 1999, distributed.net and the Electronic Frontier Foundation collaborated to
publicly break a DES key in 22 hours and 15 minutes. There are also some analytical results which
demonstrate theoretical weaknesses in the cipher, although they are unfeasible to mount in practice.
The algorithm is believed to be practically secure in the form of Triple DES, although there are
theoretical attacks. In recent years, the cipher has been superseded by the Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES).[7]
In some documentation, a distinction is made between DES as a standard and DES the algorithm which is
referred to as the DEA (the Data Encryption Algorithm).[8]
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cryptosystems, whose distinguishing characteristic is the use of asymmetric key algorithms instead of or
in addition to symmetric key algorithms. Using the techniques of public key-private key cryptography,
many methods of protecting communications or authenticating messages formerly unknown have
become practical. They do not require a secure initial exchange of one or more secret keys as is required
when using symmetric key algorithms. It can also be used to create digital signatures.[9]
Public key cryptography is a fundamental and widely used technology around the world, and is the
approach which underlies such Internet standards as Transport Layer Security (TLS) (successor to SSL),
PGP and GPG. [10]
The distinguishing technique used in public key cryptography is the use of asymmetric key algorithms,
where the key used to encrypt a message is not the same as the key used to decrypt it. Each user has a
pair of cryptographic keys — a public key and a private key. The private key is kept secret, whilst the
public key may be widely distributed. Messages are encrypted with the recipient's public key and can
only be decrypted with the corresponding private key. The keys are related mathematically, but the
private key cannot be feasibly (ie, in actual or projected practice) derived from the public key. It was the
discovery of such algorithms which revolutionized the practice of cryptography beginning in the middle
1970s.[11]
In contrast, Symmetric-key algorithms, variations of which have been used for some thousands of years,
use a single secret key shared by sender and receiver (which must also be kept private, thus accounting
for the ambiguity of the common terminology) for both encryption and decryption. To use a symmetric
encryption scheme, the sender and receiver must securely share a key in advance.[12]
Because symmetric key algorithms are nearly always much less computationally intensive, it is common
to exchange a key using a key-exchange algorithm and transmit data using that key and a symmetric key
algorithm. PGP, and the SSL/TLS family of schemes do this, for instance, and are called hybrid
cryptosystems in consequence.[13]
A.2.1. Diffie-Hellman
Diffie–Hellman key exchange (D–H) is a cryptographic protocol that allows two parties that have no
prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a shared secret key over an insecure communications
channel. This key can then be used to encrypt subsequent communications using a symmetric key
cipher.[14]
The scheme was first published by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1976, although it later emerged
that it had been separately invented a few years earlier within GCHQ, the British signals intelligence
agency, by Malcolm J. Williamson but was kept classified. In 2002, Hellman suggested the algorithm be
called Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange in recognition of Ralph Merkle's contribution to the
invention of public-key cryptography (Hellman, 2002).[15]
U.S. Patent 4,200,770, now expired, describes the algorithm and credits Hellman, Diffie, and Merkle as
inventors.[17]
A.2.2. RSA
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APPENDIX A. ENCRYPTION STANDARDS
In cryptography, RSA (which stands for Rivest, Shamir and Adleman who first publicly described it) is an
algorithm for public-key cryptography. It is the first algorithm known to be suitable for signing as well as
encryption, and was one of the first great advances in public key cryptography. RSA is widely used in
electronic commerce protocols, and is believed to be secure given sufficiently long keys and the use of
up-to-date implementations.
A.2.3. DSA
DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm) is a standard for digital signatures, a United States federal
government standard for digital signatures. DSA is for signatures only and is not an encryption
algorithm. [18]
A.2.4. SSL/TLS
Transport Layer Security (TLS) and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic
protocols that provide security for communications over networks such as the Internet. TLS and SSL
encrypt the segments of network connections at the Transport Layer end-to-end.
Several versions of the protocols are in widespread use in applications like web browsing, electronic mail,
Internet faxing, instant messaging and voice-over-IP (VoIP).[19]
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APPENDIX B. REVISION HISTORY
239