VMware Postgres must use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for log timestamps.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-239215	VCPG-67-000023	SV-239215r679018_rule		Medium

Description
If time stamps are not applied consistently and there is no common time reference, it is difficult to perform forensic analysis. Time stamps generated by the DBMS must include date and time. Time is commonly expressed in UTC, a modern continuation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or local time with an offset from UTC. Some DBMS products offer a data type called TIMESTAMP that is not a representation of date and time. Rather, it is a database state counter and does not correspond to calendar and clock time. This requirement does not refer to that meaning of TIMESTAMP.

Description

If time stamps are not applied consistently and there is no common time reference, it is difficult to perform forensic analysis. Time stamps generated by the DBMS must include date and time. Time is commonly expressed in UTC, a modern continuation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or local time with an offset from UTC. Some DBMS products offer a data type called TIMESTAMP that is not a representation of date and time. Rather, it is a database state counter and does not correspond to calendar and clock time. This requirement does not refer to that meaning of TIMESTAMP.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 6.7 PostgreSQL Security Technical Implementation Guide	2021-03-18

Details

Check Text ( C-42448r679016_chk )
At the command prompt, execute the following command: # /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U postgres -c "SHOW log_timezone;"\|sed -n 3p\|sed -e 's/^[ ]*//' Expected result: Etc/UTC If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-42407r679017_fix)
At the command prompt, execute the following commands: # /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U postgres -c "ALTER SYSTEM SET log_timezone TO 'Etc/UTC';" # /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U postgres -c "SELECT pg_reload_conf();"