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RHEL-10-600640 RHEL 10 must enable the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) interface for SSHD.

DISA STIG library V1R3
All changes in this version
first version loaded CAT I

Maps to MA-4 via CCI-000877

Title

RHEL 10 must enable the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) interface for SSHD.

Control

Verify RHEL 10 SSHD is configured to allow for the "UsePAM" interface with the following command: $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*usepam' UsePAM yes If the "UsePAM" keyword is set to "no", is missing, or is commented out, this is a finding.

Discussion

When "UsePAM" is set to "yes", PAM runs through account and session types properly. This is important when restricted access to services based on IP, time, or other factors of the account is needed. Additionally, this ensures users can inherit certain environment variables on login or disallow access to the server.

Related controls

CCI-000877

Fix

Configure RHEL 10 SSHD to use the "UsePAM" interface by adding or modifying the following line in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" or in a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d". UsePAM yes Restart the SSH daemon with the following command for the settings to take effect: $ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service