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V-215397

CAT II (Medium)

AIX kernel core dumps must be disabled unless needed.

Rule ID

SV-215397r991589_rule

STIG

IBM AIX 7.x Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V3R2

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

Kernel core dumps may contain the full contents of system memory at the time of the crash. Kernel core dumps may consume a considerable amount of disk space and may result in Denial of Service by exhausting the available space on the target file system. The kernel core dump process may increase the amount of time a system is unavailable due to a crash. Kernel core dumps can be useful for kernel debugging.

Check Content

Determine if kernel core dumps are enabled on the system using command: 

# sysdumpdev -l 
primary              /dev/sysdumpnull
secondary            /dev/sysdumpnull

Look at both the primary and secondary dump devices. 

If either the primary or secondary dump device is not "/dev/sysdumpnull", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Disable kernel core dumps on the system by setting primary and secondary dump devices to "sysdumpnull" by running following commands:
# sysdumpdev -P -p /dev/sysdumpnull 
# sysdumpdev -P -s /dev/sysdumpnull