OVAL checks that work correctly

Peter Vrabec pvrabec at redhat.com
Wed Dec 21 16:13:08 UTC 2011


Hi Jeff,

On Wednesday, December 14, 2011 02:04:57 PM Jeffrey Blank wrote:
> Peter,
> 
> Yes, there are still lots of issues, and it's too early to send reports.
> The only profile that might fully work is the little "test" profile.
> 
> :)
> 
> The current goal is to be able to run the other profiles (as you say), like:
> make content; make validate
> oscap xccdf eval --profile desktop_fastcheck output/rhel6-xccdf-valid.html
> 
> Right now, we are still working to make fixes.  You are also invited to
> commit fixes directly, if you'd like.
> 
> We did just push a fix for one silly problem, in which pattern matches
> were broken by newlines.  (A result of tidy's "nice indenting" of the
> translation of the USGCB content.)
> 
> The informal plan is:
> 
> 1) Make sure that the large number of "templated" checks work properly.
> The "templated" checks (services, packages, audit rules, kernel modules)
> should work now.  (Right?)
> 
> 2) Make the other checks work, discovering problems by executing the
> profile (with the oscap line above).  Right now there is a problem with
> a missing <Value> that Michael is investigating.
It seems to me we have different understanding how profiles in XCCDF work. As 
far as I know (need to check spec. one more time) profiles inherit rules 
selection from a "default" profile. Default profile == no profile. (I don't know 
how to call it :) )

example.
<profile id="desktop">
   <select idref="partition_for_tmp" selected="true"/>
</profile>
<group>
 <rule id="no_unpackaged_sgid_files" >
  </rule>
</group>


If you evaluate "desktop" profile both checks "partition_for_tmp" and 
"no_unpackaged_sgid_files" will be executed. Why?
1. inheritance
2. all groups and rules have @selected attribute set to "true" by default.

The results is that the profiles in your content does not work in oscap tool 
correctly. Whenever you want to evaluate certain profile all the rules from the 
content are executed. I doubt that's an intention. :)


Peter.








> 3) Do the real research about the RHEL 6 platform and add additional checks.
> 
> I will consider it a major milestone when we can execute the desktop or
> server profile with oscap.  (I plan to send messages to the list when we
> can do so.)
> 
> At that time, we'd want reports of problems.  Until then, we're trying
> to fix up as much as possible.
> 
> Also note:
> The testcheck.py script can't handle external variables right now, so I
> was considering updating it to:
> replace external vars with local vars,
> using values from (the shell's) environment variables.
> 
> Or perhaps we should try using oscap directly for unit tests of the OVAL
> checks, since we have valid XCCDF and OVAL to use now ...
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Jeff
> 
> On 12/14/2011 08:59 AM, Peter Vrabec wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I'd like to test the content but I don't know which OVAL tests are
> > considered to be OK. I mean they are "implemented" correctly.
> > 
> > My assumption is that tests from one of the XCCDF profiles should be OK.
> > Could you please clarify it. The reason I'm asking is that I don't want
> > to report you issues that you are already aware of. :)
> > 
> > Peter.
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > scap-security-guide at lists.fedorahosted.org
> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/scap-security-guide
> 
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