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Understanding the Compliance Operator

The Compliance Operator lets OpenShift Container Platform administrators describe the required compliance state of a cluster and provides them with an overview of gaps and ways to remediate them. The Compliance Operator assesses compliance of both the Kubernetes API resources of OpenShift Container Platform, as well as the nodes running the cluster. The Compliance Operator uses OpenSCAP, a NIST-certified tool, to scan and enforce security policies provided by the content.

Important

The Compliance Operator is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) deployments only.

Compliance Operator profiles

There are several profiles available as part of the Compliance Operator installation. You can use the oc get command to view available profiles, profile details, and specific rules.

  • View the available profiles:

    $ oc get profile.compliance -n openshift-compliance
    Example output
    NAME                       AGE     VERSION
ocp4-cis                   3h49m   1.5.0
ocp4-cis-1-4               3h49m   1.4.0
ocp4-cis-1-5               3h49m   1.5.0
ocp4-cis-node              3h49m   1.5.0
ocp4-cis-node-1-4          3h49m   1.4.0
ocp4-cis-node-1-5          3h49m   1.5.0
ocp4-e8                    3h49m
ocp4-high                  3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-high-node             3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-high-node-rev-4       3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-high-rev-4            3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-moderate              3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-moderate-node         3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-moderate-node-rev-4   3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-moderate-rev-4        3h49m   Revision 4
ocp4-nerc-cip              3h49m
ocp4-nerc-cip-node         3h49m
ocp4-pci-dss               3h49m   3.2.1
ocp4-pci-dss-3-2           3h49m   3.2.1
ocp4-pci-dss-4-0           3h49m   4.0.0
ocp4-pci-dss-node          3h49m   3.2.1
ocp4-pci-dss-node-3-2      3h49m   3.2.1
ocp4-pci-dss-node-4-0      3h49m   4.0.0
ocp4-stig                  3h49m   V2R1
ocp4-stig-node             3h49m   V2R1
ocp4-stig-node-v1r1        3h49m   V1R1
ocp4-stig-node-v2r1        3h49m   V2R1
ocp4-stig-v1r1             3h49m   V1R1
ocp4-stig-v2r1             3h49m   V2R1
rhcos4-e8                  3h49m
rhcos4-high                3h49m   Revision 4
rhcos4-high-rev-4          3h49m   Revision 4
rhcos4-moderate            3h49m   Revision 4
rhcos4-moderate-rev-4      3h49m   Revision 4
rhcos4-nerc-cip            3h49m
rhcos4-stig                3h49m   V2R1
rhcos4-stig-v1r1           3h49m   V1R1
rhcos4-stig-v2r1           3h49m   V2R1

    These profiles represent different compliance benchmarks. Each profile has the product name that it applies to added as a prefix to the profile’s name. ocp4-e8 applies the Essential 8 benchmark to the OpenShift Container Platform product, while rhcos4-e8 applies the Essential 8 benchmark to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) product.

  • Run the following command to view the details of the rhcos4-e8 profile:

    $ oc get -n openshift-compliance -oyaml profiles.compliance rhcos4-e8
    Example output 
    apiVersion: compliance.openshift.io/v1alpha1
description: 'This profile contains configuration checks for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  CoreOS that align to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Essential Eight.
  A copy of the Essential Eight in Linux Environments guide can be found at the ACSC
  website: https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/view-all-content/publications/hardening-linux-workstations-and-servers'
id: xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_profile_e8
kind: Profile
metadata:
  annotations:
    compliance.openshift.io/image-digest: pb-rhcos4hrdkm
    compliance.openshift.io/product: redhat_enterprise_linux_coreos_4
    compliance.openshift.io/product-type: Node
  creationTimestamp: "2022-10-19T12:06:49Z"
  generation: 1
  labels:
    compliance.openshift.io/profile-bundle: rhcos4
  name: rhcos4-e8
  namespace: openshift-compliance
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: compliance.openshift.io/v1alpha1
    blockOwnerDeletion: true
    controller: true
    kind: ProfileBundle
    name: rhcos4
    uid: 22350850-af4a-4f5c-9a42-5e7b68b82d7d
  resourceVersion: "43699"
  uid: 86353f70-28f7-40b4-bf0e-6289ec33675b
rules:
- rhcos4-accounts-no-uid-except-zero
- rhcos4-audit-rules-dac-modification-chmod
- rhcos4-audit-rules-dac-modification-chown
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-chcon
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-restorecon
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-semanage
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-setfiles
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-setsebool
- rhcos4-audit-rules-execution-seunshare
- rhcos4-audit-rules-kernel-module-loading-delete
- rhcos4-audit-rules-kernel-module-loading-finit
- rhcos4-audit-rules-kernel-module-loading-init
- rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events
- rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events-faillock
- rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events-lastlog
- rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events-tallylog
- rhcos4-audit-rules-networkconfig-modification
- rhcos4-audit-rules-sysadmin-actions
- rhcos4-audit-rules-time-adjtimex
- rhcos4-audit-rules-time-clock-settime
- rhcos4-audit-rules-time-settimeofday
- rhcos4-audit-rules-time-stime
- rhcos4-audit-rules-time-watch-localtime
- rhcos4-audit-rules-usergroup-modification
- rhcos4-auditd-data-retention-flush
- rhcos4-auditd-freq
- rhcos4-auditd-local-events
- rhcos4-auditd-log-format
- rhcos4-auditd-name-format
- rhcos4-auditd-write-logs
- rhcos4-configure-crypto-policy
- rhcos4-configure-ssh-crypto-policy
- rhcos4-no-empty-passwords
- rhcos4-selinux-policytype
- rhcos4-selinux-state
- rhcos4-service-auditd-enabled
- rhcos4-sshd-disable-empty-passwords
- rhcos4-sshd-disable-gssapi-auth
- rhcos4-sshd-disable-rhosts
- rhcos4-sshd-disable-root-login
- rhcos4-sshd-disable-user-known-hosts
- rhcos4-sshd-do-not-permit-user-env
- rhcos4-sshd-enable-strictmodes
- rhcos4-sshd-print-last-log
- rhcos4-sshd-set-loglevel-info
- rhcos4-sysctl-kernel-dmesg-restrict
- rhcos4-sysctl-kernel-kptr-restrict
- rhcos4-sysctl-kernel-randomize-va-space
- rhcos4-sysctl-kernel-unprivileged-bpf-disabled
- rhcos4-sysctl-kernel-yama-ptrace-scope
- rhcos4-sysctl-net-core-bpf-jit-harden
title: Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Essential Eight

  • Run the following command to view the details of the rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events rule:

    $ oc get -n openshift-compliance -oyaml rules rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events
    Example output 
    apiVersion: compliance.openshift.io/v1alpha1
checkType: Node
description: |-
  The audit system already collects login information for all users and root. If the auditd daemon is configured to use the augenrules program to read audit rules during daemon startup (the default), add the following lines to a file with suffix.rules in the directory /etc/audit/rules.d in order to watch for attempted manual edits of files involved in storing logon events:

  -w /var/log/tallylog -p wa -k logins
  -w /var/run/faillock -p wa -k logins
  -w /var/log/lastlog -p wa -k logins

  If the auditd daemon is configured to use the auditctl utility to read audit rules during daemon startup, add the following lines to /etc/audit/audit.rules file in order to watch for unattempted manual edits of files involved in storing logon events:

  -w /var/log/tallylog -p wa -k logins
  -w /var/run/faillock -p wa -k logins
  -w /var/log/lastlog -p wa -k logins
id: xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_audit_rules_login_events
kind: Rule
metadata:
  annotations:
    compliance.openshift.io/image-digest: pb-rhcos4hrdkm
    compliance.openshift.io/rule: audit-rules-login-events
    control.compliance.openshift.io/NIST-800-53: AU-2(d);AU-12(c);AC-6(9);CM-6(a)
    control.compliance.openshift.io/PCI-DSS: Req-10.2.3
    policies.open-cluster-management.io/controls: AU-2(d),AU-12(c),AC-6(9),CM-6(a),Req-10.2.3
    policies.open-cluster-management.io/standards: NIST-800-53,PCI-DSS
  creationTimestamp: "2022-10-19T12:07:08Z"
  generation: 1
  labels:
    compliance.openshift.io/profile-bundle: rhcos4
  name: rhcos4-audit-rules-login-events
  namespace: openshift-compliance
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: compliance.openshift.io/v1alpha1
    blockOwnerDeletion: true
    controller: true
    kind: ProfileBundle
    name: rhcos4
    uid: 22350850-af4a-4f5c-9a42-5e7b68b82d7d
  resourceVersion: "44819"
  uid: 75872f1f-3c93-40ca-a69d-44e5438824a4
rationale: Manual editing of these files may indicate nefarious activity, such as
  an attacker attempting to remove evidence of an intrusion.
severity: medium
title: Record Attempts to Alter Logon and Logout Events
warning: Manual editing of these files may indicate nefarious activity, such as an
  attacker attempting to remove evidence of an intrusion.

Compliance Operator profile types

Compliance Operator rules are organized into profiles. Profiles can target the Platform or Nodes for OpenShift Container Platform, and some benchmarks include rhcos4 Node profiles.

Platform

Platform profiles evaluate your OpenShift Container Platform cluster components. For example, a Platform-level rule can confirm whether APIServer configurations are using strong encryption cyphers.

Node

Node profiles evaluate the OpenShift or RHCOS configuration of each host. You can use two Node profiles: ocp4 Node profiles and rhcos4 Node profiles. The ocp4 Node profiles evaluate the OpenShift configuration of each host. For example, they can confirm whether kubeconfig files have the correct permissions to meet a compliance standard. The rhcos4 Node profiles evaluate the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) configuration of each host. For example, they can confirm whether the SSHD service is configured to disable password logins.

Important

For benchmarks that have Node and Platform profiles, such as PCI-DSS, you must run both profiles in your OpenShift Container Platform environment.

For benchmarks that have ocp4 Platform, ocp4 Node, and rhcos4 Node profiles, such as FedRAMP High, you must run all three profiles in your OpenShift Container Platform environment.

Note

In a cluster with many Nodes, both ocp4 Node and rhcos4 Node scans might take a long time to complete.