The Photon operating system must initiate session audits at system startup.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-258836	PHTN-40-000080	SV-258836r933569_rule		Medium

Description
If auditing is enabled late in the startup process, the actions of some startup processes may not be audited. Some audit systems also maintain state information only available if auditing is enabled before a given process is created.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-10-29

Details

Check Text ( C-62576r933567_chk )
At the command line, run the following command to verify auditing is enabled at startup: # grep 'audit' /proc/cmdline Example result: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.109-2.ph4-esx root=PARTUUID=6e6293c6-9ab6-49e9-aa97-9b212f2e037a init=/lib/systemd/systemd rcupdate.rcu_expedited=1 rw systemd.show_status=1 quiet noreplace-smp cpu_init_udelay=0 plymouth.enable=0 systemd.legacy_systemd_cgroup_controller=yes audit=1 If the "audit" parameter is not present with a value of "1", this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-62576r933567_chk )

At the command line, run the following command to verify auditing is enabled at startup:

# grep 'audit' /proc/cmdline

Example result:

BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.109-2.ph4-esx root=PARTUUID=6e6293c6-9ab6-49e9-aa97-9b212f2e037a init=/lib/systemd/systemd rcupdate.rcu_expedited=1 rw systemd.show_status=1 quiet noreplace-smp cpu_init_udelay=0 plymouth.enable=0 systemd.legacy_systemd_cgroup_controller=yes audit=1

If the "audit" parameter is not present with a value of "1", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-62485r933568_fix)
Navigate to and open: /boot/grub2/grub.cfg Locate the boot command line arguments. An example follows: linux /boot/$photon_linux root=$rootpartition $photon_cmdline $systemd_cmdline Add "audit=1" to the end of the line so it reads as follows: linux /boot/$photon_linux root=$rootpartition $photon_cmdline $systemd_cmdline audit=1 Note: Do not copy/paste in this example argument line. This may change in future releases. Find the similar line and append "audit=1" to it. Reboot the system for the change to take effect.

Fix Text (F-62485r933568_fix)

Navigate to and open:

/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Locate the boot command line arguments. An example follows:

linux /boot/$photon_linux root=$rootpartition $photon_cmdline $systemd_cmdline

Add "audit=1" to the end of the line so it reads as follows:

linux /boot/$photon_linux root=$rootpartition $photon_cmdline $systemd_cmdline audit=1

Note: Do not copy/paste in this example argument line. This may change in future releases. Find the similar line and append "audit=1" to it.

Reboot the system for the change to take effect.