CNF-21326: RAN Hardening - SSHD (H3: PermitEmptyPasswords)

[sebrandon1]

Summary

SSHD hardening for HIGH severity compliance remediations only.

Remediation Group

• H3: SSHD Empty Passwords - HIGH severity

SSHD Setting

Severity	Setting	Value	Description
HIGH	PermitEmptyPasswords	no	Prevent SSH login with empty passwords

Implementation

Uses drop-in file at /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/75-hardening.conf

Scope Note

This PR focuses exclusively on HIGH severity SSHD compliance. MEDIUM and LOW severity SSHD settings (M1, L1) will be addressed in separate PRs.

Related

• Jira: CNF-21326
• Epic: CNF-19031 - RAN Hardening (High Severity Compliance)
• Full Remediation Tracking

Test plan

• Apply MachineConfig to test cluster
• Verify: sshd -T | grep permitemptypasswords
• Run Compliance Operator scan to verify check passes

Compliance Checks

• rhcos4-e8-worker-sshd-disable-empty-passwords
• rhcos4-e8-master-sshd-disable-empty-passwords

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[openshift-ci]

[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is NOT APPROVED

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[openshift-ci-robot]

@sebrandon1: This pull request references CNF-19031 which is a valid jira issue.

Warning: The referenced jira issue has an invalid target version for the target branch this PR targets: expected the epic to target the "4.21.0" version, but no target version was set.

Details

In response to this:

Based on reviews of #439

We'll have a single MachineConfig per path, per severity. Future high level severity flags will be added to this file and rebuilt with new comment and source key/values.

Security hardening for SSHD:

• Added 75-sshd_config-high.yaml to disable direct root SSH access, disable password-based authentication (including empty passwords), implement a 5-minute session timeout, and enforce public key authentication for SSH access on worker nodes.

Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available here. If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the openshift-eng/jira-lifecycle-plugin repository.

[openshift-ci-robot]

@sebrandon1: This pull request references CNF-21326 which is a valid jira issue.

Warning: The referenced jira issue has an invalid target version for the target branch this PR targets: expected the story to target the "4.22.0" version, but no target version was set.

Details

In response to this:

Summary

SSHD hardening for HIGH severity compliance remediations only.

Remediation Group

• H3: SSHD Empty Passwords - HIGH severity

SSHD Setting

Severity	Setting	Value	Description
HIGH	PermitEmptyPasswords	no	Prevent SSH login with empty passwords

Implementation

Uses drop-in file at /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/75-hardening.conf

Scope Note

This PR focuses exclusively on HIGH severity SSHD compliance. MEDIUM and LOW severity SSHD settings (M1, L1) will be addressed in separate PRs.

Related

• Jira: CNF-21326
• Epic: CNF-19031 - RAN Hardening (High Severity Compliance)
• Full Remediation Tracking

Test plan

• Apply MachineConfig to test cluster
• Verify: sshd -T | grep permitemptypasswords
• Run Compliance Operator scan to verify check passes

Compliance Checks

• rhcos4-e8-worker-sshd-disable-empty-passwords
• rhcos4-e8-master-sshd-disable-empty-passwords

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available here. If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the openshift-eng/jira-lifecycle-plugin repository.