RHEL 8 systems, versions 8.2 and above, must configure SELinux context type to allow the use of a non-default faillock tally directory.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-force attacks, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account. From "faillock.conf" man pages: Note that the default directory that "pam_faillock" uses is usually cleared on system boot so the access will be re-enabled after system reboot. If that is undesirable, a different tally directory must be set with the "dir" option. SELinux, enforcing a targeted policy, will require any non-default tally directory's security context type to match the default directory's security context type. Without updating the security context type, the pam_faillock module will not write failed login attempts to the non-default tally directory.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-250315r1017356_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Configure RHEL 8 to allow the use of a non-default faillock tally directory while SELinux enforces a targeted policy.
Create a non-default faillock tally directory (if it does not already exist) with the following example:
$ sudo mkdir /var/log/faillock