UCF STIG Viewer Logo
Changes are coming to https://stigviewer.com. Take our survey to help us understand your usage and how we can better serve you in the future.
Take Survey

The netconsole service must be disabled unless required.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-38672 RHEL-06-000289 SV-50473r2_rule Low
Description
The "netconsole" service is not necessary unless there is a need to debug kernel panics, which is not common.
STIG Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2017-03-01

Details

Check Text ( C-46233r1_chk )
To check that the "netconsole" service is disabled in system boot configuration, run the following command:

# chkconfig "netconsole" --list

Output should indicate the "netconsole" service has either not been installed, or has been disabled at all runlevels, as shown in the example below:

# chkconfig "netconsole" --list
"netconsole" 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off

Run the following command to verify "netconsole" is disabled through current runtime configuration:

# service netconsole status

If the service is disabled the command will return the following output:

netconsole is stopped


If the service is running, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-43622r2_fix)
The "netconsole" service is responsible for loading the netconsole kernel module, which logs kernel printk messages over UDP to a syslog server. This allows debugging of problems where disk logging fails and serial consoles are impractical. The "netconsole" service can be disabled with the following commands:

# chkconfig netconsole off
# service netconsole stop