It shouldn't match commented out lines. Here's the pattern match line:

<ind:pattern operation="pattern match">^[\s]*password[\s]+(?:(?:required)|(?:requisite))[\s]+[\w_\.\-=\s]+[\s]ucredit=(-?\d+)(?:[\s]|$)</ind:pattern>

- The ^ means: anchor our regex to the beginning of the line.
- The [\s]* means: match any kind of white space, zero or more times. White space includes spaces, tabs, new lines, and return lines, but not comment characters. (The next [\s]+ features a '+', which means: match one or more times.)
- Paragraphs normally group things that we are matching for, it's called capturing, but since the next few groups of parentheses begin with ?:, the chunk "
(?:(?:required)|(?:requisite))" means search for required OR requisite, but that's not our match.
- Then we see another white space group, [\s]+, followed by a more complicated search [
\w_\.\-=\s]+, which looks for words, underscores, periods, minus signs, equals signs, and more spaces (square brackets mean: here is a group of individual characters or character classes that I want to look for in the same location).
- More whitespace searching follows (just in case), followed by the all important ucredit=.
- Here, the paragraph grouping IS what we're looking for, so it doesn't have the combination ?:. Instead, it says, we're looking for one or more digits "\d+", but it might be negative "-?". (To review, * means match 0 or more times, + equals match 1 or more times, ? can mean match 1 or 0 times.)
- There's some more nongrouping searching, which looks ahead for white space OR a $, which means match end of line. (Either ucredit is the last thing in the list, or there's going to be at least one space between it and the end of the line. Searches with parentheses don't care about intermediate characters. They look ahead or behind.)

I'm not a regex expert by any means. I find OVAL's regex cheatsheet to be very helpful: http://oval.mitre.org/language/about/re_support_5.6.html

- Maura Dailey

On 07/31/2013 09:05 AM, Hayden,Robert wrote:

Maura,

Thank you for the quick reply.  The options within the XCCDF source for valid values now makes the "selector" wording more logical.  I was falling into the trap of coincidences with the value of "2" being translated to a "-2" in the system-auth in my mind.

 

The "Less than or equal to 1 probably means first match or none." is interesting in that for lines I modify, I typically comment out the original so that I or others will know that the conf file has been customized.  I will test, but it feels like the regex will capture commented lines as well and may produce false positives if the commented line is above.

 

For example,

 

# --Modified--password    requisite     pam_cracklib.so try_first_pass retry=3 type=

password    requisite     pam_cracklib.so try_first_pass retry=3 type= maxrepeat=3 minlen=14 dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 ocredit=-1 lcredit=-1 difok=4

 

I will familiarize myself with the XML schema documents.  I will continue to watch the project.  As my understanding becomes more in depth, I may try to participate in some fashion.

 

Robert Hayden | Sr. Technology Architect | Cerner Corporation | 816.201.4068 | rhayden@cerner.com | www.cerner.com

 

From: Maura Dailey [mailto:maura@eclipse.ncsc.mil]
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:54 PM
To: scap-security-guide@lists.fedorahosted.org
Cc: Hayden,Robert
Subject: Re: Incorrect Profile variable for stig-rhel6-server?

 

You're right, that doesn't look right. The error appears to be in the refine-value section of the generated ssg-rhel6-xccdf.xml document. When I look at ucredit's XCCDF source, I see that it has four possible defined values:

<value>-1</value>
<value selector="2">-2</value>
<value selector="1">-1</value>
<value selector="0">0</value>

The refine-value selector value is pointing to "2", which is equal to -2. Other profiles have the exact same refine-value settings, probably a copy paste mistake that got propagated further. This feels like an off by one error and deserving of a patch.

The instance element that confused you that was inside the regex object is actually to allow you to refer to a specific match by number. The first match is 1, the second would be 2, etc. Often, you will see it set to greater than or equal to 1, which means "set of all matches". Less than or equal to 1 probably means first match or none. You may find the official OVAL language definition documentation helpful, although they are admittedly hard to parse on the first pass. Here's the page for the independent namespace: http://oval.mitre.org/language/version5.10.1/ovaldefinition/documentation/independent-definitions-schema.html

Here's the list of all the definitions (I find reading from the html Documentation column to be easier than attempting to parse XML directly): http://oval.mitre.org/language/version5.10.1/index.html

Thanks for your email! If you'd like to look at friendlier syntax, please feel free to look at the XML source in our git repository. It has human readable ids. We are pushing out semi regular updates to the RPM version as well.

- Maura Dailey

On 07/30/2013 05:54 PM, Hayden,Robert wrote:

All,

 

Please forgive my ignorance, as I am just starting to wrap my brain around the terminology in the Security community and the SCAP testing tools.  I guess a newbie warning.   I attempted to highlight sections of text below to help in reading, but it may get stripped out from some emailers.  Jump to the bottom if you want to see my questions and skip the investigation parts.

 

After the Red Hat conference, I got interested in the SCAP-Security-Guide and OpenScap project in terms of helping to pass the RHEL 6 STIG from the DoD.    Primarily I am in R&D for a large Healthcare software company.  We are evaluating RHEL 6 now and I wanted to incorporate as much of the DoD security components that I could.  The SCAP-Security-Guide and OpenScap seemed like a perfect fit.

 

My configuration:

RHEL 6.4 +

openscap.x86_64                             0.9.3-1.el6  

openscap-utils.x86_64                       0.9.3-1.el6  

scap-security-guide.noarch                  0.1-12.el6   

 

I read through all of the pages in the SCAP Security Guide web site, read the STIGs, and tested a eval of oscap with the Profile set to stig-rhel6-server.  I kept failing the series of checks associated to the /etc/pam.d/system-auth setting on pam_cracklib.so.

 

The rhel6-guide.html (section 2.4.2.2.1) indicated to change /etc/pam.d/system-auth to read:

 

        password required pam_cracklib.so try_first_pass retry=3 maxrepeat=3 minlen=14 dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 ocredit=-1 lcredit=-1 difok=4

 

Seemed simple enough.  But, I was still failing the evaluation check.  The 'dcredit' would pass, but the parameters beyond that would fail their respective checks.

 

Looking at the DoD STIG, version 1 release 2, it also showed that a ucredit=-1 was the expected setting to pass V-38569.

 

I first read through the open tickets to see if this was a reported defect.  Nothing in particular matched, although there was some talk about changing these checks to work on both the /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth files.

 

I decided to dig into the source.

 

From the "accounts_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit.xml" [1], I see that the checks appear to be a pattern match operation, searching the file "system-auth" located in the "/etc/pam.d" directory.  I am not 100% sure what the <ind:instance> is telling me, but I assumed it was (a) the return value of the pattern match had to be less than or equal to 1, or (b) that the number of matches found in the system-auth file had to be less than or equal to 1.

 

  <ind:textfilecontent54_object id="obj_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit"

  version="1">

    <ind:path>/etc/pam.d</ind:path>

    <ind:filename>system-auth</ind:filename>

    <ind:pattern operation="pattern match">^[\s]*password[\s]+(?:(?:required)|(?:requisite))[\s]+[\w_\.\-=\s]+[\s]ucredit=(-?\d+)(?:[\s]|$)</ind:pattern>

    <ind:instance datatype="int" operation="less than or equal">1</ind:instance>

  </ind:textfilecontent54_object>

 

 

My regex skills are weak, so I went to a helpful web site[2] to help interpret the regex.  Given my line in system-auth file and the regex listed in the check, the regex appeared to be working as designed.  A value of "-1" was being returned in the second element of the array.

 

That is good.

 

I thought maybe my downloaded scap-security-guide content may have been out of date compared to the source I was reviewing.   The mailing list seems to show a very active project with many patches flowing into the project.

 

Since the installed files are a compilation of hundreds of source xml files, reviewing the installed xml was interesting.  I am sure there is a simpler way to connect a check to the commands….but here is how I completed the task.

 

In "ssg-rhel6-oval.xml", I find a <definition id="oval:ssg:def:249"> that contains criteria for the ucredit test, test_ref="oval:ssg:tst:250". 

 

    <definition class="compliance" id="oval:ssg:def:249" version="1">

      <metadata>

        <title>Set Password ucredit Requirements</title>

        <affected family="unix">

          <platform>Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6</platform>

        </affected>

        <description>The password ucredit should meet minimum

      requirements using pam_cracklib</description>

      <reference source="ssg" ref_id="accounts_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit"/></metadata>

      <criteria>

        <criterion comment="Conditions for ucredit are satisfied" test_ref="oval:ssg:tst:250"/>

      </criteria>

    </definition>

 

Searching for "oval:ssg:tst:250", I find a stanza pointing to the object_ref="oval:ssg:obj:1295" and state_ref="oval:ssg:ste:1296". 

 

    <ind:textfilecontent54_test check="all" comment="check the configuration of /etc/pam.d/system-auth" id="oval:ssg:tst:250" version="1">

      <ind:object object_ref="oval:ssg:obj:1295"/>

      <ind:state state_ref="oval:ssg:ste:1296"/>

    </ind:textfilecontent54_test>

 

Object 1295 is the check which matches the source code I found:

 

    <ind:textfilecontent54_object id="oval:ssg:obj:1295" version="1">

      <ind:path>/etc/pam.d</ind:path>

      <ind:filename>system-auth</ind:filename>

      <ind:pattern operation="pattern match">^[\s]*password[\s]+(?:(?:required)|(?:requisite))[\s]+[\w_\.\-=\s]+[\s]ucredit=(-?\d+)(?:[\s]|$)</ind:pattern>

      <ind:instance datatype="int" operation="less than or equal">1</ind:instance>

    </ind:textfilecontent54_object>

 

That is good. My installed XML matches the source code tree I was reviewing.  But, I am still stuck with a failed check.

 

The state_ref="oval:ssg:ste:1296" points to a variable reference, var_ref="oval:ssg:var:2120".

 

    <ind:textfilecontent54_state id="oval:ssg:ste:1296" version="1">

      <ind:instance datatype="int">1</ind:instance>

      <ind:subexpression datatype="int" operation="less than or equal" var_ref="oval:ssg:var:2120"/>

    </ind:textfilecontent54_state>

 

The variable reference, var_ref="oval:ssg:var:2120", points to

 

    <external_variable comment="External variable for pam_cracklib ucredit" datatype="int" id="oval:ssg:var:2120" version="1"/>

 


I am not sure what an external variable is….but I did find it referenced in the "ssg-rhel6-xccdf.xml" file as part of the Rule id="password_require_uppercases".

 

    <check system="http://oval.mitre.org/XMLSchema/oval-definitions-5">

       <check-export export-name="oval:ssg:var:2120" value-id="var_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit"/>

       <check-content-ref name="oval:ssg:def:249" href="ssg-rhel6-oval.xml"/>

    </check>

 

So, now I have a value-id="var_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit".  I searched some more….

 

Under the Profile <Profile id="stig-rhel6-server">, I find the following:

 

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit" selector="2"/>

 

I notice that the "dcredit" variable, which is passing, is assigned a selector="1", but the others that were failing all had a selector="2".

 

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_retry" selector="3"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_minlen" selector="14"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_dcredit" selector="1"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit" selector="2"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_ocredit" selector="2"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_lcredit" selector="2"/>

    <refine-value idref="var_password_pam_cracklib_difok" selector="3"/>

 

On a whim, I changed my /etc/pam.d/system-auth line to use a value of -2 as follows:

 

password    requisite     pam_cracklib.so try_first_pass retry=3 maxrepeat=3 minlen=14 dcredit=-1 ucredit=-2 ocredit=-2 lcredit=-2 difok=3

 

Now, I am passing the checks.

 

 

QUESTIONS:  

1.       Is the reasoning above correct in that a Profile can use variables to set specific values to check against?

2.       Did I uncover an incorrect variable value of selector="2" in the stig-rhel6-server profile for the ucredit (and others) associated to the pam_cracklib.so settings?

 

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

Robert

 

 

[1] https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/scap-security-guide.git/tree/RHEL6/input/checks/accounts_password_pam_cracklib_ucredit.xml

[2] http://www.myregextester.com/index.php

 

 

 

Robert Hayden | Sr. Technology Architect | Cerner Corporation | 816.201.4068 | rhayden@cerner.com | www.cerner.com

 

 

 

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