The Photon operating system must enforce password complexity on the root account.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-256579	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227	PHTN-30-000110	SV-256579r991589_rule	2024-12-16	1

Description
Password complexity rules must apply to all accounts on the system, including root. Without specifying the "enforce_for_root flag", "pam_cracklib" does not apply complexity rules to the root user. While root users can find ways around this requirement, given its superuser power, it is necessary to attempt to force compliance.

ℹ️ Check
At the command line, run the following command: # grep pam_cracklib /etc/pam.d/system-password\|grep --color=always "enforce_for_root" Expected result: password requisite pam_cracklib.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=8 minclass=4 difok=4 retry=3 maxsequence=0 enforce_for_root If the output does not include "enforce_for_root", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Navigate to and open: /etc/pam.d/system-password Add the following, replacing any existing "pam_cracklib.so" line: password requisite pam_cracklib.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=8 minclass=4 difok=4 retry=3 maxsequence=0 enforce_for_root Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.

✔️ Fix

Navigate to and open: /etc/pam.d/system-password Add the following, replacing any existing "pam_cracklib.so" line: password requisite pam_cracklib.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=8 minclass=4 difok=4 retry=3 maxsequence=0 enforce_for_root Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.