Bug 1285550

Summary:	root lockout exemption for groups
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	Reporter:	Steve Grubb <sgrubb>
Component:	pam	Assignee:	Tomas Mraz <tmraz>
Status:	CLOSED ERRATA	QA Contact:	Dalibor Pospíšil <dapospis>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.2	CC:	dapospis, pkis, qe-baseos-security, sgrubb
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:	pam-1.1.8-19.el7	Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2018-04-10 11:35:33 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Steve Grubb 2015-11-25 22:44:52 UTC

Description of problem:
Security Guidance advises people to not login via root. This is enforced in several places based on the security guides. However, it  looks like if someone/everyone gets locked out, it possibly requires a root login because the is the only account exempt from the lockout policy.

Most admins are members of the wheel group. Security Guidance typically asks admins to fix su or sudo to only allow wheel group members the ability to become root. I am wondering if the lockout exemptions for root should also be optionally extended to wheel group members so that we have a recovery method consistent with security guidance.

Comment 1 Tomas Mraz 2016-01-18 15:29:57 UTC

So what PAM modules are we talking here about?

pam_faillock is clearly one. Is there anything else?

Comment 2 Steve Grubb 2016-01-18 15:50:30 UTC

pam_faillock is the main one. I presume the pam_tally* modules are being deprecated at some future point.

Comment 11 errata-xmlrpc 2018-04-10 11:35:33 UTC

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2018:0718