Set Interactive Session Timeout

This page is not yet available in Spanish. We are working on its translation.
If you have any questions or feedback about our current translation project, feel free to reach out to us!

Description

Setting the TMOUT option in /etc/profile ensures that all user sessions will terminate based on inactivity. The value of TMOUT should be exported and read only. The TMOUT

setting in a file loaded by /etc/profile, e.g. /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh should read as follows:

TMOUT=900
        

readonly TMOUT export TMOUT

Rationale

Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port that has been left unattended.

Remediation

Shell script

The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.

#!/bin/bash

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; then

var_accounts_tmout='900'


# if 0, no occurence of tmout found, if 1, occurence found
tmout_found=0

for f in /etc/bash.bashrc /etc/profile /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if grep --silent '^\s*TMOUT' $f; then
        sed -i -E "s/^(\s*)TMOUT\s*=\s*(\w|\$)*(.*)$/\1TMOUT=$var_accounts_tmout\3/g" $f
        tmout_found=1
        if ! grep --silent '^\s*readonly TMOUT' $f ; then
            echo "readonly TMOUT" >> $f
        fi
        if ! grep --silent '^\s*export TMOUT' $f ; then
            echo "export TMOUT" >> $f
        fi
    fi
done

if [ $tmout_found -eq 0 ]; then
        echo -e "\n# Set TMOUT to $var_accounts_tmout per security requirements" >> /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh
        echo "TMOUT=$var_accounts_tmout" >> /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh
        echo "readonly TMOUT" >> /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh
        echo "export TMOUT" >> /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh
fi

else
    >&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi

Ansible playbook

The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.

- name: XCCDF Value var_accounts_tmout # promote to variable
  set_fact:
    var_accounts_tmout: !!str 900
  tags:
    - always

- name: Correct any occurrence of TMOUT in /etc/profile
  replace:
    path: /etc/profile
    regexp: ^[^#].*TMOUT=.*
    replace: typeset -xr TMOUT={{ var_accounts_tmout }}
  register: profile_replaced
  when: ansible_virtualization_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
  tags:
  - DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010013
  - NIST-800-171-3.1.11
  - NIST-800-53-AC-12
  - NIST-800-53-AC-2(5)
  - NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
  - NIST-800-53-SC-10
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.6.1
  - accounts_tmout
  - low_complexity
  - low_disruption
  - medium_severity
  - no_reboot_needed
  - restrict_strategy

- name: Set Interactive Session Timeout
  lineinfile:
    path: /etc/profile.d/tmout.sh
    create: true
    regexp: TMOUT=
    line: typeset -xr TMOUT={{ var_accounts_tmout }}
    state: present
  when: ansible_virtualization_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
  tags:
  - DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010013
  - NIST-800-171-3.1.11
  - NIST-800-53-AC-12
  - NIST-800-53-AC-2(5)
  - NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
  - NIST-800-53-SC-10
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.6.1
  - accounts_tmout
  - low_complexity
  - low_disruption
  - medium_severity
  - no_reboot_needed
  - restrict_strategy
PREVIEWING: rtrieu/product-analytics-ui-changes