AlmaLinux OS 9 must require a unique superuser's name upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-269138 | SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048 | ALMA-09-006400 | SV-269138r1137691_rule | 2026-02-27 | 1 |
Description
Having a nondefault grub superuser username makes password-guessing attacks less effective.
ℹ️ Check
Verify the boot loader superuser account has been set with the following command:
$ grep -A1 "superusers" /etc/grub2.cfg
set superusers="superman"
export superusers
password_pbkdf2 superman ${GRUB2_PASSWORD}
In this example "superman" is the actual account name, changed from the default "root".
If superusers contains easily guessable usernames, this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
Configure AlmaLinux OS 9 to have a unique username for the grub superuser account using the following commands:
$ sed -ri 's/root/superman/' /etc/grub.d/01_users
$ grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg