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5.4 Ensure login via "host" TCP/IP Socket is configured correctly

Warning! Audit Deprecated

This audit has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update.

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Information

A large number of authentication METHODs are available for hosts connecting using TCP/IP sockets, including:

 - trust
 - reject
 - md5
 - scram-sha-256
 - password
 - gss
 - sspi
 - ident
 - pam
 - ldap
 - radius
 - cert

METHODs trust password and ident are not to be used for remote logins.

METHOD md5 is the most popular and can be used in both encrypted and unencrypted sessions, however,

it is vulnerable to packet replay attacks

. It is recommended that scram-sha-256 be used instead of md5

Use of the gss sspi pam ldap radius and cert METHODs are dependent upon the availability of external authenticating processes/services and thus are not covered in this benchmark.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

Confirm a login attempt has been made by looking for a logged error message detailing the nature of the authenticating failure. In the case of failed login attempts, whether encrypted or unencrypted, check the following:

 - The server should be sitting on a port exposed to the remote connecting host i.e. NOT ip address 127.0.0.1 listen_addresses = '*'
 ```
 * An authenticating rule must exist in the file `pg_hba.conf`

 This example permits encrypted sessions for the `postgres` role and denies all unencrypted sessions for the `postgres` role:

# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHODhostssl all postgres 0.0.0.0/0 scram-sha-256hostnossl all postgres 0.0.0.0/0 reject

The following examples illustrate other possible configurations. The resultant "rule" of success/failure depends upon the first matching line

# allow 'postgres' user only from 'localhost/loopback' connections# and only if you know the password# (accepts both SSL and non-SSL connections)# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHODhost all postgres 127.0.0.1/32 scram-sha-256# allow users to connect remotely only to the database named after them, # with the correct user password:# (accepts both SSL and non-SSL connections)# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHODhost samerole all 0.0.0.0/0 scram-sha-256# allow only those users who are a member of the 'rw' role to connect# only to the database named after them, with the correct user password:# (accepts both SSL and non-SSL connections)# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHODhost samerole +rw 0.0.0.0/0 scram-sha-256

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/19478

Item Details

References: CSCv7|14.4

Plugin: PostgreSQLDB

Control ID: 2205245541f3f816506461d18a40d797cb1fe09bdf1ab8393c3ce495e1a8f81a