STIGUI
V-271870CAT II — Medium severitySV-271870r1092322_rule

OL 9 must not forward IPv4 source-routed packets by default.

Rule version OL09-00-006026 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

Source-routed packets allow the source of the packet to suggest routers forward the packet along a different path than configured on the router, which can be used to bypass network security measures.

Accepting source-routed packets in the IPv4 protocol has few legitimate uses. It must be disabled unless it is absolutely required, such as when IPv4 forwarding is enabled and the system is legitimately functioning as a router.

Check

Verify that OL 9 does not accept IPv4 source-routed packets by default.

Check the value of the accept source route variable with the following command:

$ sysctl net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0

If the returned line does not have a value of "0", a line is not returned, or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure OL 9 to not forward IPv4 source-routed packets by default.

Add or edit the following line in a single system configuration file in the "/etc/sysctl.d/" directory:

net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0

Load settings from all system configuration files with the following command:

$ sudo sysctl --system

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271870
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271870r1092322_rule
Check ID
C-75920r1092320_chk
Fix ID
F-75827r1092321_fix