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V-258763

CAT III (Low)

The ESXi host Secure Shell (SSH) daemon must be configured to not allow gateway ports.

Rule ID

SV-258763r933350_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 8.0 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

SSH Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection forwarding provides a mechanism to establish TCP connections proxied by the SSH server. This function can provide convenience similar to a virtual private network (VPN) with the similar risk of providing a path to circumvent firewalls and network Access Control Lists (ACLs). Gateway ports allow remote forwarded ports to bind to nonloopback addresses on the server.

Check Content

From an ESXi shell, run the following command:

# esxcli system ssh server config list -k gatewayports

or

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

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.list.invoke() | Where-Object {$_.Key -eq 'gatewayports'}

Example result:

gatewayports no

If "gatewayports" is not configured to "no", this is a finding.

Fix Text

From an ESXi shell, run the following command:

# esxcli system ssh server config set -k gatewayports -v no

or

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

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -v2
$arguments = $esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.CreateArgs()
$arguments.keyword = 'gatewayports'
$arguments.value = 'no'
$esxcli.system.ssh.server.config.set.Invoke($arguments)