DISA STIGS Viewer

OL 9 SSH daemon must not allow known hosts authentication.

Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-271712 OL09-00-002349 SV-271712r1091848_rule   Medium
Description
Configuring the IgnoreUserKnownHosts setting for the SSH daemon provides additional assurance that remote login via SSH will require a password, even in the event of misconfiguration elsewhere.
STIG Date
Oracle Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2025-05-08

Details

Check Text (C-75762r1091846_chk)
Verify that OL 9 SSH daemon does not allow known hosts authentication with the following command:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*ignoreuserknownhosts'
IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

If the value is returned as "no", the returned line is commented out, or no output is returned, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-75669r1091847_fix)
Configure the SSH daemon to not allow known hosts authentication.

Add the following line to "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" or to a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d" or uncomment the line and set the value to "yes":

IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

The SSH service must be restarted for changes to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service