RHEL 8 must not allow users to override SSH environment variables.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-230330	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00229	RHEL-08-010830	SV-230330r1069305_rule	2025-03-26	2

Description
SSH environment options potentially allow users to bypass access restriction in some configurations.

ℹ️ Check
Verify that unattended or automatic logon via ssh is disabled with the following command: $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 \| awk '/filename/ {print $4}' \| tr -d '\r' \| tr '\n' ' ' \| xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*permituserenvironment' /etc/ssh/sshd_config:PermitUserEnvironment no If "PermitUserEnvironment" is set to "yes", is missing completely, or is commented out, this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Verify that unattended or automatic logon via ssh is disabled with the following command: $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*permituserenvironment' /etc/ssh/sshd_config:PermitUserEnvironment no If "PermitUserEnvironment" is set to "yes", is missing completely, or is commented out, this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure RHEL 8 to allow the SSH daemon to not allow unattended or automatic logon to the system. Add or edit the following line in the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file: PermitUserEnvironment no The SSH daemon must be restarted for the changes to take effect. To restart the SSH daemon, run the following command: $ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service