All Interactive User Home Directories Must Be Group-Owned By The Primary Group
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Change the group owner of interactive users home directory to the
group found in /etc/passwd
. To change the group owner of
interactive users home directory, use the following command:
$ sudo chgrp USER_GROUP /home/USER
This rule ensures every home directory related to an interactive user is
group-owned by an interactive user. It also ensures that interactive users
are group-owners of one and only one home directory.
Rationale
If the Group Identifier (GID) of a local interactive users home directory is
not the same as the primary GID of the user, this would allow unauthorized
access to the users files, and users that share the same group may not be
able to access files that they legitimately should.
Shell script
The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.
#!/bin/bash
awk -F':' '{ if ($3 >= 1000 && $3 != 65534) system("chgrp -f " $4" "$6) }' /etc/passwd
Ansible playbook
The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.
- name: Get all local users from /etc/passwd
ansible.builtin.getent:
database: passwd
split: ':'
tags:
- file_groupownership_home_directories
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
- name: Create local_users variable from the getent output
ansible.builtin.set_fact:
local_users: '{{ ansible_facts.getent_passwd|dict2items }}'
tags:
- file_groupownership_home_directories
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
- name: Test for existence of home directories to avoid creating them, but only fixing
group ownership
ansible.builtin.stat:
path: '{{ item.value[4] }}'
register: path_exists
loop: '{{ local_users }}'
when:
- item.value[1]|int >= 1000
- item.value[1]|int != 65534
tags:
- file_groupownership_home_directories
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
- name: Ensure interactive local users are the group-owners of their respective home
directories
ansible.builtin.file:
path: '{{ item.0.value[4] }}'
group: '{{ item.0.value[2] }}'
loop: '{{ local_users|zip(path_exists.results)|list }}'
when: item.1.stat is defined and item.1.stat.exists
tags:
- file_groupownership_home_directories
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
Warning
Due to OVAL limitation, this rule can report a false negative in a
specific situation where two interactive users swap the group-ownership
of their respective home directories.