The ESXi host Secure Shell (SSH) daemon must disable port forwarding.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-258785 | SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000 | ESXI-80-000230 | SV-258785r933416_rule | 2023-10-11 | 1 |
Description
While enabling Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) tunnels is a valuable function of sshd, this feature is not appropriate for use on the ESXi hypervisor.
ℹ️ Check
From an ESXi shell, run the following command:
# esxcli system ssh server config list -k allowtcpforwarding
or
From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands:
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.list.invoke() | Where-Object {$_.Key -eq 'allowtcpforwarding'}
Example result:
allowtcpforwarding no
If "allowtcpforwarding" is not configured to "no", this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
From an ESXi shell, run the following command:
# esxcli system ssh server config set -k allowtcpforwarding -v no
or
From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands:
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$arguments = $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.CreateArgs()
$arguments.keyword = 'allowtcpforwarding'
$arguments.value = 'no'
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.Invoke($arguments)