RHEL 8 operating systems booted with a BIOS must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-230235 | RHEL-08-010150 | SV-230235r1017054_rule | CCI-000213 | high |
| Description | ||||
| If the system does not require valid authentication before it boots into single-user or maintenance mode, anyone who invokes single-user or maintenance mode is granted privileged access to all files on the system. GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for RHEL 8 and is designed to require a password to boot into single-user mode or make modifications to the boot menu. | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2025-05-14 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-230235r1017054_chk)
For systems that use UEFI, this is Not Applicable.
Check to see if an encrypted grub superusers password is set. On systems that use a BIOS, use the following command:
$ sudo grep -iw grub2_password /boot/grub2/user.cfg
GRUB2_PASSWORD=grub.pbkdf2.sha512.[password_hash]
If the grub superusers password does not begin with "grub.pbkdf2.sha512", this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-32879r743924_fix)
Configure the system to require a grub bootloader password for the grub superusers account with the grub2-setpassword command, which creates/overwrites the /boot/grub2/user.cfg file.
Generate an encrypted grub2 password for the grub superusers account with the following command:
$ sudo grub2-setpassword
Enter password:
Confirm password: