RHEL 9 must display the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting local or remote access to the system via a SSH logon.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-257981	SRG-OS-000023-GPOS-00006	RHEL-09-255025	SV-257981r1101970_rule	2025-05-14	2

Description
The warning message reinforces policy awareness during the logon process and facilitates possible legal action against attackers. Alternatively, systems whose ownership should not be obvious should ensure usage of a banner that does not provide easy attribution. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000023-GPOS-00006, SRG-OS-000228-GPOS-00088

ℹ️ Check
Verify any SSH connection to RHEL 9 displays the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system. Check for the location of the banner file being used with the following command: $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 \| awk '/filename/ {print $4}' \| tr -d '\r' \| tr '\n' ' ' \| xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*banner' /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/80-bannerPointer.conf:Banner /etc/issue This command will return the banner keyword and the name of the file that contains the SSH banner (in this case "/etc/issue"). If the line is commented out, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Verify any SSH connection to RHEL 9 displays the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system. Check for the location of the banner file being used with the following command: $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*banner' /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/80-bannerPointer.conf:Banner /etc/issue This command will return the banner keyword and the name of the file that contains the SSH banner (in this case "/etc/issue"). If the line is commented out, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure RHEL 9 to display the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system via ssh. Edit the "etc/ssh/sshd_config" file or a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d" to uncomment the banner keyword and configure it to point to a file that will contain the logon banner (this file may be named differently or be in a different location if using a version of SSH that is provided by a third-party vendor). An example configuration line is: Banner /etc/issue

✔️ Fix

Configure RHEL 9 to display the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system via ssh. Edit the "etc/ssh/sshd_config" file or a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d" to uncomment the banner keyword and configure it to point to a file that will contain the logon banner (this file may be named differently or be in a different location if using a version of SSH that is provided by a third-party vendor). An example configuration line is: Banner /etc/issue