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Disable IPv6 Addressing on All IPv6 Interfaces

An XCCDF Rule

Description

To disable support for (ipv6) addressing on all interface add the following line to /etc/sysctl.d/ipv6.conf (or another file in /etc/sysctl.d):

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
This disables IPv6 on all network interfaces as other services and system functionality require the IPv6 stack loaded to work.

Rationale

Any unnecessary network stacks - including IPv6 - should be disabled, to reduce the vulnerability to exploitation.

ID
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_sysctl_net_ipv6_conf_all_disable_ipv6
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Ansible

- name: List /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf files
  find:
    paths:
    - /etc/sysctl.d/
    - /run/sysctl.d/
    - /usr/local/lib/sysctl.d/

Remediation - Shell Script

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; then

# Comment out any occurrences of net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 from /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf files

for f in /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf /run/sysctl.d/*.conf /usr/local/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf /usr/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf; do