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Guide to the Secure Configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark

  • Set Default ip6tables 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/ip6tables</code>: <pre...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Set configuration for IPv6 loopback traffic

    Configure the loopback interface to accept traffic. Configure all other interfaces to deny traffic to the loopback network.
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Set configuration for loopback traffic

    Configure the loopback interface to accept traffic. Configure all other interfaces to deny traffic to the loopback network.
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Strengthen the Default Ruleset

    The default rules can be strengthened. The system scripts that activate the firewall rules expect them to be defined in the configuration files <code>iptables</code> and <code>ip6tables</code> in t...
    Group
  • Ensure ip6tables Firewall Rules Exist for All Open Ports

    Any ports that have been opened on non-loopback addresses need firewall rules to govern traffic.
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Ensure iptables Firewall Rules Exist for All Open Ports

    Any ports that have been opened on non-loopback addresses need firewall rules to govern traffic.
    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 IPv6 Addressing on IPv6 Interfaces by Default

    To disable support for (<code>ipv6</code>) addressing on interfaces by default add the following line to <code>/etc/sysctl.d/ipv6.conf</code> (or another file in <code>/etc/sysctl.d</code>): <pre>n...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Set Default iptables Policy for Forwarded Packets

    To set the default policy to DROP (instead of ACCEPT) for the built-in FORWARD chain which processes packets that will be forwarded from one interface to another, add or correct the following line ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Restrict ICMP Message Types

    In <code>/etc/sysconfig/iptables</code>, the accepted ICMP messages types can be restricted. To accept only ICMP echo reply, destination unreachable, and time exceeded messages, remove the line:<br...
    Group
  • Log and Drop Packets with Suspicious Source Addresses

    Packets with non-routable source addresses should be rejected, as they may indicate spoofing. Because the modified policy will reject non-matching packets, you only need to add these rules if you a...
    Group
  • IPv6

    The system includes support for Internet Protocol version 6. A major and often-mentioned improvement over IPv4 is its enormous increase in the number of available addresses. Another important featu...
    Group
  • Disable Support for IPv6 Unless Needed

    Despite configuration that suggests support for IPv6 has been disabled, link-local IPv6 address auto-configuration occurs even when only an IPv4 address is assigned. The only way to effectively pre...
    Group
  • Ensure IPv6 is disabled through kernel boot parameter

    To disable IPv6 protocol support in the Linux kernel, add the argument <code>ipv6.disable=1</code> to the default GRUB2 command line for the Linux operating system. To ensure that <code>ipv6.disabl...
    Rule Low Severity
  • Disable IPv6 Networking Support Automatic Loading

    To prevent the IPv6 kernel module (<code>ipv6</code>) from binding to the IPv6 networking stack, add the following line to <code>/etc/modprobe.d/disabled.conf</code> (or another file in <code>/etc/...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Disable Interface Usage of IPv6

    To disable interface usage of IPv6, add or correct the following lines in /etc/sysconfig/network:
    NETWORKING_IPV6=no
    IPV6INIT=no
    Rule Unknown Severity
  • Disable Support for RPC IPv6

    RPC services for NFSv4 try to load transport modules for <code>udp6</code> and <code>tcp6</code> by default, even if IPv6 has been disabled in <code>/etc/modprobe.d</code>. To prevent RPC services ...
    Rule Unknown Severity
  • net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects

    Toggle ICMP Redirect Acceptance By Default
    Value
  • net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_source_route

    Trackers could be using source-routed packets to generate traffic that seems to be intra-net, but actually was created outside and has been redirected.
    Value
  • net.ipv6.conf.default.autoconf

    Enable auto configuration on IPv6 interfaces
    Value

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