Title

The audit system must alert designated staff members when the audit storage volume approaches capacity. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Notifying administrators of an impending disk space problem may allow them to take corrective action prior to any disruption.

Check Content

Inspect "/etc/audit/auditd.conf" and locate the following line to determine if the system is configured to email the administrator when disk space is starting to run low: # grep space_left_action /etc/audit/auditd.conf space_left_action = email If the system is not configured to send an email to the system administrator when disk space is starting to run low, this is a finding. The "syslog" option is acceptable when it can be demonstrated that the local log management infrastructure notifies an appropriate administrator in a timely manner.

Fix Text

The "auditd" service can be configured to take an action when disk space starts to run low. Edit the file "/etc/audit/auditd.conf". Modify the following line, substituting [ACTION] appropriately: space_left_action = [ACTION] Possible values for [ACTION] are described in the "auditd.conf" man page. These include: "ignore" "syslog" "email" "exec" "suspend" "single" "halt" Set this to "email" (instead of the default, which is "suspend") as it is more likely to get prompt attention. The "syslog" option is acceptable, provided the local log management infrastructure notifies an appropriate administrator in a timely manner. RHEL-06-000521 ensures that the email generated through the operation "space_left_action" will be sent to an administrator.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-217850r603264_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-217850

Group Title: SRG-OS-000343

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.