SV-37350r2: The system must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The system must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.

Description

Discussion Text

If the system does not require valid root authentication before it boots into single-user or maintenance mode, anyone who invokes single-user or maintenance mode is granted privileged access to all files on the system.

How this relates to the STIG checklist: STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000213CCE-4241-6

Additional Details

Responsibility

System Administrator

References

DPMS Target Red Hat 5 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat 5 2154

SCC Automation Reference

The reconstructed evaluation script behind this rule's OVAL check(s) — every module a compound check combines, with this rule's own concrete values and DISA's SCC tool's real per-module mechanism curated from static teardown of SCC releases.

#!/bin/bash
# Reconstructed from oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:31
# The system must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# Tests the value of the single-user login setting in the /etc/inittab file
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  grep -Pq '^[^#:]{1,4}:S:[^:]+:/sbin/sulogin$' '/etc/inittab' &>/dev/null
}

if test_1; then
  echo "PASS"
else
  echo "FAIL"
fi

Assessment Script Powered by AISandbox-executed

A standalone Shell script to assess this control automatically. Review before running it in your environment.

Syntax-checked and actually executed in an isolated sandbox (not the real system this checks) — confirmed to run without errors.

#!/bin/sh
# OVAL Definition: oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:31

FILE="/etc/inittab"
if [ ! -f "$FILE" ]; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
fi
if grep -q "^[^#:]{1,4}:S:[^:]+:/sbin/sulogin$" "$FILE"; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
else
  echo "FAIL"
  exit 1
fi

Remediation

Edit /etc/inittab and set sulogin to run in single-user mode.
Example line in /etc/inittab:
~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin

Note: The first field in the /etc/inittab line may be any sequence of 1-4 characters.