Title

The root user's home directory must not be the root directory (/). (Cat III impact)

Discussion

Changing the root home directory to something other than / and assigning it a 0700 protection makes it more difficult for intruders to manipulate the system by reading the files that root places in its default directory. It also gives root the same discretionary access control for root's home directory as for the other plain user home directories.

Check Content

Determine if root is assigned a home directory other than / by listing its home directory. Procedure: # grep "^root" /etc/passwd | awk -F":" '{print $6}' If the root user home directory is /, this is a finding.

Fix Text

The root home directory should be something other than / (such as /rootdir). Procedure: # mkdir /rootdir # chown root /rootdir # chgrp root /rootdir # chmod 700 /rootdir # cp -r /.??* /rootdir Edit the passwd file and change the root home directory to /rootdir. The cp -r /.??* command copies all files and subdirectories of file names beginning with "." into the new root directory, which preserves the previous root environment. The cp command must be executed from the / directory.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-774r2_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-774

Group Title: GEN000900

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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