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V-257789

CAT I (High)

RHEL 9 must require a unique superusers name upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.

Rule ID

SV-257789r1137691_rule

STIG

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V2R8

CCIs

CCI-000213

Discussion

Having a nondefault grub superuser username makes password-guessing attacks less effective.

Check Content

Verify the RHEL 9 boot loader superuser account has been set with the following command:

$ sudo grep -A1 "superusers" /etc/grub2.cfg 

set superusers="<accountname>"
export superusers
password_pbkdf2 <accountname> ${GRUB2_PASSWORD}
 
Verify <accountname> is not a common name such as root, admin, or administrator.

If superusers contains easily guessable usernames, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure RHEL 9 to have a unique username for the grub superuser account.

Edit the "/etc/grub.d/01_users" file and add or modify the following lines with a nondefault username for the superuser account:

set superusers="<accountname>"
export superusers 

Once the superuser account has been added, update the grub.cfg file by running:

In RHEL 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2:
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

In RHEL 9.3 and later:
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg --update-bls-cmdline