RHEL 9 SSH daemon must not allow rhosts authentication.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-258005 | SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 | RHEL-09-255145 | SV-258005r1045069_rule | 2026-02-05 | 2 |
Description
SSH trust relationships mean a compromise on one host can allow an attacker to move trivially to other hosts.
ℹ️ Check
Verify the SSH daemon does not allow rhosts authentication 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*ignorerhosts'
IgnoreRhosts yes
If the value is returned as "no", the returned line is commented out, or no output is returned, this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
Configure the SSH daemon to not allow rhosts authentication.
Add the following line to "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" or to a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d", or uncomment the line and set the value to "yes":
IgnoreRhosts yes
The SSH service must be restarted for changes to take effect:
$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service