The ESXi host Secure Shell (SSH) daemon must ignore .rhosts files.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-258738	ESXI-80-000052	SV-258738r1003561_rule		Medium

Description
SSH trust relationships mean a compromise on one host can allow an attacker to move trivially to other hosts. SSH can emulate the behavior of the obsolete "rsh" command in allowing users to enable insecure access to their accounts via ".rhosts" files.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide	2024-07-11

Details

Check Text ( C-62478r933273_chk )
From an ESXi shell, run the following command: # esxcli system ssh server config list -k ignorerhosts or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands: $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2 $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.list.invoke() \| Where-Object {$_.Key -eq 'ignorerhosts'} Example result: ignorerhosts yes If "ignorerhosts" is not configured to "yes", this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-62478r933273_chk )

From an ESXi shell, run the following command:

# esxcli system ssh server config list -k ignorerhosts

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands:

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.list.invoke() | Where-Object {$_.Key -eq 'ignorerhosts'}

Example result:

ignorerhosts yes

If "ignorerhosts" is not configured to "yes", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-62387r933274_fix)
From an ESXi shell, run the following command: # esxcli system ssh server config set -k ignorerhosts -v yes or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands: $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2 $arguments = $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.CreateArgs() $arguments.keyword = 'ignorerhosts' $arguments.value = 'yes' $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.Invoke($arguments)

Fix Text (F-62387r933274_fix)

From an ESXi shell, run the following command:

# esxcli system ssh server config set -k ignorerhosts -v yes

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands:

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$arguments = $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.CreateArgs()
$arguments.keyword = 'ignorerhosts'
$arguments.value = 'yes'
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.Invoke($arguments)