Skip to content
ATO Pathways
  Log In

Disable Ctrl-Alt-Del Burst Action

An XCCDF Rule

Description

By default, SystemD will reboot the system if the Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence is pressed Ctrl-Alt-Delete more than 7 times in 2 seconds.

To configure the system to ignore the CtrlAltDelBurstAction setting, create a MachineConfig similar to the following: 

apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
  labels:
    machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: master
  name: 75-master-disable-ctrlaltdel-burstaction
spec:
  config:
    ignition:
      version: 3.1.0
    storage:
      files:
      - contents:
          source: data:,CtrlAltDelBurstAction%3Dnone
        mode: 0644
        path: /etc/systemd/system.conf.d/disable_ctrlaltdelete_burstaction.conf
        overwrite: true
EOF

This will add the relevant configuration to /etc/systemd/system.conf.d/, thus configuring Systemd apropriately.

Note that this needs to be done for each MachineConfigPool

For more information on how to configure nodes with the Machine Config Operator see the relevant documentation.

warning alert: Functionality Warning

Disabling the Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence in /etc/init/control-alt-delete.conf DOES NOT disable the Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence if running in runlevel 6 (e.g. in GNOME, KDE, etc.)! The Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence will only be disabled if running in the non-graphical runlevel 3.

Rationale

A locally logged-in user who presses Ctrl-Alt-Del, when at the console, can reboot the system. If accidentally pressed, as could happen in the case of mixed OS environment, this can create the risk of short-term loss of availability of systems due to unintentional reboot.

ID
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_disable_ctrlaltdel_burstaction
Severity
High
References
Updated



Remediation - Kubernetes Patch

---
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
spec:
  config:
    ignition: