Guide to the Secure Configuration of Oracle Linux 8
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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Specify module signing key to use
Setting this option to something other than its default of <code>certs/signing_key.pem</code> will disable the autogeneration of signing keys and allow the kernel modules to be signed with a key of...Rule Medium Severity -
Uncommon Network Protocols
The system includes support for several network protocols which are not commonly used. Although security vulnerabilities in kernel networking code are not frequently discovered, the consequences ca...Group -
Use zero for poisoning instead of debugging value
Instead of using the existing poison value, fill the pages with zeros. This makes it harder to detect when errors are occurring due to sanitization but the zeroing at free means that it is no longe...Rule Medium Severity -
Remove the kernel mapping in user mode
This feature reduces the number of hardware side channels by ensuring that the majority of kernel addresses are not mapped into userspace. This configuration is available from kernel 4.15, but may ...Rule High Severity -
Kernel panic oops
Enable the kernel to panic when it oopses. This has the same effect as setting oops=panic on the kernel command line. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/co...Rule Medium Severity -
Kernel panic timeout
Set the timeout value (in seconds) until a reboot occurs when the kernel panics. A timeout of 0 configures the system to wait forever. With a timeout value greater than 0, the system will wait the ...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable support for /proc/kkcore
Provides a virtual ELF core file of the live kernel. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/config-*</code>. To check the configuration value for <code>CON...Rule Low Severity -
Randomize the address of the kernel image (KASLR)
In support of Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR), this randomizes the physical address at which the kernel image is decompressed and the virtual address where the kernel image is map...Rule Medium Severity -
Randomize the kernel memory sections
Randomizes the base virtual address of kernel memory sections (physical memory mapping, vmalloc & vmemmap). This configuration is available from kernel 4.8, but may be available if backported b...Rule Medium Severity -
Avoid speculative indirect branches in kernel
Compile kernel with the retpoline compiler options to guard against kernel-to-user data leaks by avoiding speculative indirect branches. Requires a compiler with -mindirect-branch=thunk-extern supp...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable seccomp to safely compute untrusted bytecode
This kernel feature is useful for number crunching applications that may need to compute untrusted bytecode during their execution. By using pipes or other transports made available to the process ...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable use of Berkeley Packet Filter with seccomp
Enable tasks to build secure computing environments defined in terms of Berkeley Packet Filter programs which implement task-defined system call filtering polices. The configuration that was used ...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable different security models
This allows you to choose different security modules to be configured into your kernel. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/config-*</code>. To check th...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable Yama support
This enables support for LSM module Yama, which extends DAC support with additional system-wide security settings beyond regular Linux discretionary access controls. The module will limit the use o...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable SLUB debugging support
SLUB has extensive debug support features and this allows the allocator validation checking to be enabled. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/config-*</cod...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable TCP/IP syncookie support
Normal TCP/IP networking is open to an attack known as SYN flooding. It is denial-of-service attack that prevents legitimate remote users from being able to connect to your computer during an ongoi...Rule Medium Severity -
Unmap kernel when running in userspace (aka KAISER)
Speculation attacks against some high-performance processors can be used to bypass MMU permission checks and leak kernel data to userspace. This can be defended against by unmapping the kernel when...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable x86 vsyscall emulation
Disabling it is roughly equivalent to booting with vsyscall=none, except that it will also disable the helpful warning if a program tries to use a vsyscall. With this option set to N, offending pro...Rule Low Severity -
Kernel GCC plugin configuration
Contains rules that check the configuration of GCC plugins used by the compilerGroup -
Ensure rsyslog-gnutls is installed
TLS protocol support for rsyslog is installed. Thersyslog-gnutls
package can be installed with the following command:$ sudo yum install rsyslog-gnutls
Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure rsyslog is Installed
Rsyslog is installed by default. Thersyslog
package can be installed with the following command:$ sudo yum install rsyslog
Rule Medium Severity -
Enable rsyslog Service
The <code>rsyslog</code> service provides syslog-style logging by default on Oracle Linux 8. The <code>rsyslog</code> service can be enabled with the following command: <pre>$ sudo systemctl enabl...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure cron Is Logging To Rsyslog
Cron logging must be implemented to spot intrusions or trace cron job status. If <code>cron</code> is not logging to <code>rsyslog</code>, it can be implemented by adding the following to the <i>RU...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure Rsyslog Authenticates Off-Loaded Audit Records
Rsyslogd is a system utility providing support for message logging. Support for both internet and UNIX domain sockets enables this utility to support both local and remote logging. Couple this uti...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure Rsyslog Encrypts Off-Loaded Audit Records
Rsyslogd is a system utility providing support for message logging. Support for both internet and UNIX domain sockets enables this utility to support both local and remote logging. Couple this uti...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure Logrotate Runs Periodically
The <code>logrotate</code> utility allows for the automatic rotation of log files. The frequency of rotation is specified in <code>/etc/logrotate.conf</code>, which triggers a cron task or a timer...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure System Log Files Have Correct Permissions
The file permissions for all log files written by <code>rsyslog</code> should be set to 640, or more restrictive. These log files are determined by the second part of each Rule line in <code>/etc/r...Rule Medium Severity -
systemd-journald
systemd-journald is a system service that collects and stores logging data. It creates and maintains structured, indexed journals based on logging information that is received from a variety of sou...Group -
Enable systemd-journald Service
The <code>systemd-journald</code> service is an essential component of systemd. The <code>systemd-journald</code> service can be enabled with the following command: <pre>$ sudo systemctl enable sy...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure All Logs are Rotated by logrotate
Edit the file <code>/etc/logrotate.d/syslog</code>. Find the first line, which should look like this (wrapped for clarity): <pre>/var/log/messages /var/log/secure /var/log/maillog /var/log/spoole...Group -
Ensure logrotate is Installed
logrotate is installed by default. Thelogrotate
package can be installed with the following command:$ sudo yum install logrotate
Rule Medium Severity -
Configure CA certificate for rsyslog remote logging
Configure CA certificate for <code>rsyslog</code> logging to remote server using Transport Layer Security (TLS) using correct path for the <code>DefaultNetstreamDriverCAFile</code> global option in...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure syslog-ng is Installed
syslog-ng can be installed in replacement of rsyslog. Thesyslog-ng-core
package can be installed with the following command:$ sudo yum install syslog-ng-core
Rule Medium Severity -
Enable syslog-ng Service
The <code>syslog-ng</code> service (in replacement of rsyslog) provides syslog-style logging by default on Debian. The <code>syslog-ng</code> service can be enabled with the following command: <pr...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable rsyslog to Accept Messages via UDP, if Acting As Log Server
The <code>rsyslog</code> daemon should not accept remote messages unless the system acts as a log server. If the system needs to act as a central log server, add the following lines to <code>/etc/r...Rule Unknown Severity -
Ensure rsyslog Does Not Accept Remote Messages Unless Acting As Log Server
The <code>rsyslog</code> daemon should not accept remote messages unless the system acts as a log server. To ensure that it is not listening on the network, ensure any of the following lines are <i...Rule Medium Severity -
Remote Log Server
Specify an URI or IP address of a remote host where the log messages will be sent and stored.Value -
Ensure Logs Sent To Remote Host
To configure rsyslog to send logs to a remote log server, open <code>/etc/rsyslog.conf</code> and read and understand the last section of the file, which describes the multiple directives necessary...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure TLS for rsyslog remote logging
Configure <code>rsyslog</code> to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) support for logging to remote server for the Forwarding Output Module in <code>/etc/rsyslog.conf</code> using action. You can us...Rule Medium Severity -
Restrict Programs from Dangerous Execution Patterns
The recommendations in this section are designed to ensure that the system's features to protect against potentially dangerous program execution are activated. These protections are applied at the ...Group -
Grant Or Deny System Access To Specific Hosts And Services
To verify the system's access control program is configured to grant or deny system access to specific hosts check to see if "firewalld" is active with the following command: <pre># systemctl stat...Rule Medium Severity -
firewalld
The dynamic firewall daemon <code>firewalld</code> provides a dynamically managed firewall with support for network “zones” to assign a level of trust to a network and its associated connections an...Group -
Configure Firewalld to Use the Nftables Backend
Firewalld can be configured with many backends, such as nftables.Rule Medium Severity -
Verify User Who Owns Backup passwd File
To properly set the owner of/etc/passwd-
, run the command:$ sudo chown root /etc/passwd-
Rule Medium Severity -
Firewalld Must Employ a Deny-all, Allow-by-exception Policy for Allowing Connections to Other Systems
Oracle Linux 8 incorporates the "firewalld" daemon, which allows for many different configurations. One of these configurations is zones. Zones can be utilized to a deny-all, allow-by-exception app...Rule Medium Severity -
IPSec Support
Support for Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is provided with Libreswan.Group -
Verify Any Configured IPSec Tunnel Connections
Libreswan provides an implementation of IPsec and IKE, which permits the creation of secure tunnels over untrusted networks. As such, IPsec can be used to circumvent certain network requirements su...Rule Medium Severity -
Set Default iptables Policy for Incoming Packets
To set the default policy to DROP (instead of ACCEPT) for the built-in INPUT chain which processes incoming packets, add or correct the following line in <code>/etc/sysconfig/iptables</code>: <pre>...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable Bluetooth Kernel Module
The kernel's module loading system can be configured to prevent loading of the Bluetooth module. Add the following to the appropriate <code>/etc/modprobe.d</code> configuration file to prevent the ...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable IPv6 Addressing on All IPv6 Interfaces
To disable support for (<code>ipv6</code>) addressing on all interface add the following line to <code>/etc/sysctl.d/ipv6.conf</code> (or another file in <code>/etc/sysctl.d</code>): <pre>net.ipv6....Rule Medium Severity
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