STIGUI
V-281168CAT II — Medium severitySV-281168r1273589_rule

RHEL 10 must not assign an interactive login shell for system accounts.

Rule version RHEL-10-600020 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

Ensuring shells are not given to system accounts upon login makes it more difficult for attackers to use system accounts.

Check

Verify that RHEL 10 system accounts do not have an interactive login shell.

Run the following command to list any system account (UID < 1000) that has an interactive shell, excluding authorized system utility accounts (root, sync, shutdown, halt):

$ $ awk -F: '(($3 > 0 && $3 < 1000) && $1 !~ /^(halt|sync|shutdown)$/ && $7 !~ /(nologin|false)$/) {print $1 ":" $3 ":" $7}' /etc/passwd

If the command returns any output, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure RHEL 10 so that all noninteractive accounts on the system do not have an interactive shell assigned to them.

If the system account needs a shell assigned for mission operations, document the need with the information system security officer (ISSO).

Run the following command to disable the interactive shell for a specific noninteractive user account:

$ sudo usermod --shell /usr/sbin/nologin <user>

Identifiers

Group ID
V-281168
Group title
SRG-OS-000445-GPOS-00199
Rule ID
SV-281168r1273589_rule
Check ID
C-85729r1273509_chk
Fix ID
F-85634r1273510_fix