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V-258781

CAT II (Medium)

The ESXi host must configure a session timeout for the vSphere API.

Rule ID

SV-258781r933404_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 8.0 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

The vSphere API (VIM) allows for remote, programmatic administration of the ESXi host. Authenticated API sessions are no different from a risk perspective than authenticated UI sessions and they need similar protections. One of these protections is a basic inactivity timeout, after which the session will be invalidated and reauthentication will be required by the application accessing the API. This is set to 30 seconds by default but can be disabled, thus leaving API sessions open indefinitely. The 30 second default must be verified and maintained.

Check Content

From the vSphere Client, go to Hosts and Clusters.

Select the ESXi Host >> Configure >> System >> Advanced System Settings.

Select the "Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout" value and verify it is set to "30".

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following command:

Get-VMHost | Get-AdvancedSetting -Name Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout

If the "Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout" setting is not set to "30", this is a finding.

Fix Text

From the vSphere Client, go to Hosts and Clusters.

Select the ESXi Host >> Configure >> System >> Advanced System Settings.

Click "Edit". Select the "Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout" value and configure it to "30".

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following command:

Get-VMHost | Get-AdvancedSetting -Name Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value 30