MEDIUM RHCOS (Node) M16: Unsuccessful File Modification Audit P3

Pending Compare Branch

Remediation required. This group (32 checks) fails on vanilla RHCOS 10.2 and requires MachineConfig remediation. Verified on cnfdt16 (OCP 5.0, RHCOS 10.2) with compliance-operator v1.8.2.

Overview

Audits failed file modification attempts, catching permission-denied errors for chmod, chown, open, truncate, rename, unlink, and extended attribute operations. Critical for detecting unauthorized access attempts.

Profile: NIST 800-53 Moderate (rhcos4-moderate)

Compliance Checks

Check	Description
`chmod`	Audit failed chmod operations
`chown`	Audit failed chown operations
`creat`	Audit failed creat operations
`fchmod`	Audit failed fchmod operations
`fchmodat`	Audit failed fchmodat operations
`fchown`	Audit failed fchown operations
`fchownat`	Audit failed fchownat operations
`fremovexattr`	Audit failed fremovexattr operations
`fsetxattr`	Audit failed fsetxattr operations
`ftruncate`	Audit failed ftruncate operations
`lchown`	Audit failed lchown operations
`lremovexattr`	Audit failed lremovexattr operations
`lsetxattr`	Audit failed lsetxattr operations
`open`	Audit failed open operations
`open-by-handle-at`	Audit failed open-by-handle-at operations
`open-by-handle-at-o-creat`	Audit failed open-by-handle-at-o-creat operations
`open-by-handle-at-o-trunc-write`	Audit failed open-by-handle-at-o-trunc-write operations
`open-o-creat`	Audit failed open-o-creat operations
`open-o-trunc-write`	Audit failed open-o-trunc-write operations
`openat`	Audit failed openat operations
`openat-o-creat`	Audit failed openat-o-creat operations
`openat-o-trunc-write`	Audit failed openat-o-trunc-write operations
`removexattr`	Audit failed removexattr operations
`rename`	Audit failed rename operations
`renameat`	Audit failed renameat operations
`setxattr`	Audit failed setxattr operations
`truncate`	Audit failed truncate operations
`unlink`	Audit failed unlink operations
`unlinkat`	Audit failed unlinkat operations

Verification

oc debug node/<node> -- chroot /host auditctl -l | grep -c EACCES

Upstream Proposal

The following changes could eliminate the need for MachineConfig remediation. Items are categorized by recommended scope:

Unsuccessful file access audit rules (32 checks) RAN Low

openshift/os /etc/audit/rules.d/50-unsuccessful-access.rules

Tracks failed access attempts (EACCES/EPERM). Detects privilege escalation and unauthorized access probing.
Scope: 32 unsuccessful access rules generate substantial audit volume. Compliance-specific.

PR History

Unsuccessful file access audit rules (32 checks) Not Filed blocked

coreos/rhel-coreos-config

Audit rules are compliance monitoring policies, not security defaults. RHCOS ships no audit rules in rules.d by default — only samples in /usr/share/audit/sample-rules/ that Red Hat explicitly warns are 'not exhaustive nor up to date.' CoreOS maintainers debated whether to include the audit RPM at all (fedora-coreos-tracker#461) and called it 'an odd fit' (coreos/bugs#140). Audit messages already flood console on fresh boot (fedora-coreos-tracker#220). Deploying rules in the base image would substantially increase audit volume for all RHCOS deployments. The Compliance Operator's MachineConfig remediation model is the intended deployment path.

coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/461 coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/220 coreos/bugs/issues/140 docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/security_hardening/auditing-the-system_security-hardening

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