AlmaLinux OS 9 must enable the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) interface for SSHD.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
high	V-269420	SRG-OS-000125-GPOS-00065	ALMA-09-040390	SV-269420r1050303_rule	2025-02-20	1

Description
When UsePAM is set to "yes", PAM runs through account and session types properly. This is important when restricted access to services based off of IP, time, or other factors of the account is needed. Additionally, this ensures users can inherit certain environment variables on login or disallow access to the server.

ℹ️ Check
Verify the AlmaLinux OS 9 SSHD is configured to allow for the UsePAM interface with the following command: $ sshd -T \| grep usepam usepam yes If the "UsePAM" keyword is set to "no", is missing, or is commented out, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure the SSH daemon to use PAM. Add the following line to "/etc/ssh/sshd_config", or uncomment the line and set the value to "yes": UsePAM yes Alternatively, add the setting to an include file if the line "Include /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf" is found at the top of the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file: $ cat << EOF \| tee /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/pam.conf UsePAM yes EOF Restart the SSH daemon for the settings to take effect: $ systemctl restart sshd.service

✔️ Fix

Configure the SSH daemon to use PAM. Add the following line to "/etc/ssh/sshd_config", or uncomment the line and set the value to "yes": UsePAM yes Alternatively, add the setting to an include file if the line "Include /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf" is found at the top of the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file: $ cat << EOF | tee /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/pam.conf UsePAM yes EOF Restart the SSH daemon for the settings to take effect: $ systemctl restart sshd.service