STIGUI
V-271808CAT II — Medium severitySV-271808r1092136_rule

OL 9 /etc/passwd file must be owned by root.

Rule version OL09-00-002546 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

The "/etc/passwd" file contains information about the users that are configured on the system. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

Verify that OL 9 configures ownership of the "/etc/passwd" file with the following command:

$ stat -c "%U %n" /etc/passwd root /etc/passwd

If "/etc/passwd" file does not have an owner of "root", this is a finding.

Fix

Change the owner of the file /etc/passwd to root by running the following command:

$ sudo chown root /etc/passwd

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271808
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271808r1092136_rule
Check ID
C-75858r1092134_chk
Fix ID
F-75765r1092135_fix