STIGUI
V-277053CAT II — Medium severitySV-277053r1148611_rule

The macOS system must configure SSHD channel timeout to 900.

Rule version APPL-26-000120 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-01

Discussion

If SSHD is enabled, it must be configured with session ChannelTimeout set to 900.

This will set the timeout when the session is inactive.

Note: /etc/ssh/sshd_config will be automatically modified to its original state following any update or major upgrade to the operating system.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000163-GPOS-00072, SRG-OS-000279-GPOS-00109

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to set the SSHD Channel Timeout to 900 with the following command:

/usr/sbin/sshd -G | /usr/bin/awk '/channeltimeout/{print $2}'

If the result is not "900", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to set the SSHD ChannelTimeout to 900 with the following command:

include_dir=$(/usr/bin/awk '/^Include/ {print $2}' /etc/ssh/sshd_config | /usr/bin/tr -d '*')

if [[ -z $include_dir ]]; then /usr/bin/sed -i.bk "1s/.*/Include \/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config.d\/\*/" /etc/ssh/sshd_config fi

/usr/bin/grep -qxF 'channeltimeout session:*=900' "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf" 2>/dev/null || echo "channeltimeout session:*=900" >> "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf"

for file in $(ls ${include_dir}); do if [[ "$file" == "100-macos.conf" ]]; then continue fi if [[ "$file" == "01-mscp-sshd.conf" ]]; then break fi /bin/mv ${include_dir}${file} ${include_dir}20-${file} done

Identifiers

Group ID
V-277053
Group title
SRG-OS-000163-GPOS-00072
Rule ID
SV-277053r1148611_rule
Check ID
C-81208r1148609_chk
Fix ID
F-81113r1148610_fix