Description
UsePAM Enables the Pluggable Authentication Module interface. If set to “yes” this will
enable PAM authentication using ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
PasswordAuthentication in addition to PAM account and session module processing for all
authentication types.
To enable PAM authentication, add or correct the following line in
/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf:
Rationale
When UsePAM is set to yes, PAM runs through account and session types properly. This is
important if you want to restrict access to services based off of IP, time or other factors of
the account. Additionally, you can make sure users inherit certain environment variables
on login or disallow access to the server.
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
mkdir -p /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d
touch /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf
LC_ALL=C sed -i "/^\s*UsePAM\s\+/Id" "/etc/ssh/sshd_config"
LC_ALL=C sed -i "/^\s*UsePAM\s\+/Id" "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d"/*.conf
if [ -e "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf" ] ; then
LC_ALL=C sed -i "/^\s*UsePAM\s\+/Id" "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf"
else
touch "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf"
fi
# make sure file has newline at the end
sed -i -e '$a\' "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf"
cp "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf" "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf.bak"
# Insert at the beginning of the file
printf '%s\n' "UsePAM yes" > "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf"
cat "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf.bak" >> "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf"
# Clean up after ourselves.
rm "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf.bak"
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: Enable PAM
block:
- name: Deduplicate values from /etc/ssh/sshd_config
lineinfile:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
create: false
regexp: (?i)^\s*{{ "UsePAM"| regex_escape }}\s+
state: absent
- name: Check if /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d exists
stat:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d
register: _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_exists
- name: Check if the parameter UsePAM is present in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d
find:
paths: /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d
recurse: 'yes'
follow: 'no'
contains: (?i)^\s*{{ "UsePAM"| regex_escape }}\s+
register: _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_has_parameter
when: _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_exists.stat.isdir is defined and _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_exists.stat.isdir
- name: Remove parameter from files in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d
lineinfile:
path: '{{ item.path }}'
create: false
regexp: (?i)^\s*{{ "UsePAM"| regex_escape }}\s+
state: absent
with_items: '{{ _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_has_parameter.files }}'
when: _etc_ssh_sshd_config_d_has_parameter.matched
- name: Insert correct line to /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf
lineinfile:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-complianceascode-hardening.conf
create: true
regexp: (?i)^\s*{{ "UsePAM"| regex_escape }}\s+
line: UsePAM yes
state: present
insertbefore: BOF
validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -t -f %s
when: ansible_virtualization_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
tags:
- DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010035
- PCI-DSSv4-2.2.6
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
- sshd_enable_pam
