The vCenter VAMI service must protect system resources and privileged operations from hosted applications.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-259146	VCLD-80-000035	SV-259146r1003706_rule		Medium

Description
Most of the attention to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks focuses on ensuring that systems and applications are not victims of these attacks. However, these systems and applications must also be secured against use to launch such an attack against others. A variety of technologies exist to limit or, in some cases, eliminate the effects of DoS attacks. Limiting system resources that are allocated to any user to a bare minimum may also reduce the ability of users to launch some DoS attacks. One DoS mitigation is to prevent VAMI from keeping idle connections open for too long.

Description

Most of the attention to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks focuses on ensuring that systems and applications are not victims of these attacks. However, these systems and applications must also be secured against use to launch such an attack against others. A variety of technologies exist to limit or, in some cases, eliminate the effects of DoS attacks. Limiting system resources that are allocated to any user to a bare minimum may also reduce the ability of users to launch some DoS attacks. One DoS mitigation is to prevent VAMI from keeping idle connections open for too long.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) Security Technical Implementation Guide	2024-07-11

Details

Check Text ( C-62886r1003704_chk )
At the command prompt, run the following command: # /opt/vmware/cap_lighttpd/sbin/lighttpd -p -f /var/lib/vmware/cap-lighttpd/lighttpd.conf 2>/dev/null\|grep "server.max-keep-alive-idle" Example result: server.max-keep-alive-idle=30 If "server.max-keep-alive-idle" is not set to 30, this is a finding. Note: The command must be run from a bash shell and not from a shell generated by the "appliance shell". Use the "chsh" command to change the shell for the account to "/bin/bash". Refer to KB Article 2100508 for more details: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2100508

Check Text ( C-62886r1003704_chk )

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# /opt/vmware/cap_lighttpd/sbin/lighttpd -p -f /var/lib/vmware/cap-lighttpd/lighttpd.conf 2>/dev/null|grep "server.max-keep-alive-idle"

Example result:

server.max-keep-alive-idle=30

If "server.max-keep-alive-idle" is not set to 30, this is a finding.

Note: The command must be run from a bash shell and not from a shell generated by the "appliance shell". Use the "chsh" command to change the shell for the account to "/bin/bash". Refer to KB Article 2100508 for more details:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2100508

Fix Text (F-62795r1003705_fix)
Navigate to and open: /var/lib/vmware/cap-lighttpd/lighttpd.conf file. Add or reconfigure the following value: server.max-keep-alive-idle = 30 Restart the service with the following command: # systemctl restart cap-lighttpd