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V-256437

CAT II (Medium)

The ESXi host must enable strict x509 verification for SSL syslog endpoints.

Rule ID

SV-256437r959010_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 7.0 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R4

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

When sending syslog data to a remote host via SSL, the ESXi host is presented with the endpoint's SSL server certificate. In addition to trust verification, configured elsewhere, this "x509-strict" option performs additional validity checks on CA root certificates during verification. These checks are generally not performed (CA roots are inherently trusted) and might cause incompatibilities with existing, misconfigured CA roots. The NIAP requirements in the Virtualization Protection Profile and Server Virtualization Extended Package, however, require even CA roots to pass validations.

Check Content

If SSL is not used for the syslog target, this is not applicable.

From an ESXi shell, run the following command:

# esxcli system syslog config get|grep 509

or

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

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.get.invoke()|Select StrictX509Compliance

Expected result:

Strict X509Compliance: true

If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix Text

From an ESXi shell, run the following commands:

# esxcli system syslog config set --x509-strict="true"
# esxcli system syslog reload

or

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

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$arguments = $esxcli.system.syslog.config.set.CreateArgs()
$arguments.x509strict = $true
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.set.Invoke($arguments)
$esxcli.system.syslog.reload.Invoke()