PGS9-00-011600 - PostgreSQL must automatically terminate a user session after organization-defined conditions or trigger events requiring session disconnect.

Information

This addresses the termination of user-initiated logical sessions in contrast to the termination of network connections that are associated with communications sessions (i.e., network disconnect). A logical session (for local, network, and remote access) is initiated whenever a user (or process acting on behalf of a user) accesses an organizational information system. Such user sessions can be terminated (and thus terminate user access) without terminating network sessions.

Session termination ends all processes associated with a user's logical session except those batch processes/jobs that are specifically created by the user (i.e., session owner) to continue after the session is terminated.

Conditions or trigger events requiring automatic session termination can include, for example, organization-defined periods of user inactivity, targeted responses to certain types of incidents, and time-of-day restrictions on information system use.

This capability is typically reserved for specific cases where the system owner, data owner, or organization requires additional assurance.

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

Solution

Configure PostgreSQL to automatically terminate a user session after organization-defined conditions or trigger events requiring session termination.

Examples follow.

### Change a role to nologin and disconnect the user

ALTER ROLE '<username>' NOLOGIN;
SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pid) FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE usename='<usename>';

### Disconnecting users during a specific time range
See supplementary content APPENDIX-A for a bash script for this example.

The script found in APPENDIX-A using the -l command can disable all users with rolcanlogin=t from logging in. The script keeps track of who it disables in a .restore_login file. After the specified time is over, the same script can be run with the -r command to restore all login connections.

This script would be added to a cron job:

# lock at 5 am every day of the week, month, year at the 0 minute mark.
0 5 * * * postgres /var/lib/pgsql/no_login.sh -d postgres -l
# restore at 5 pm every day of the week, month, year at the 0 minute mark.
0 17 * * * postgres /var/lib/pgsql/no_login.sh -d postgres -r

Item Details

Audit Name: DISA STIG PostgreSQL 9.x on RHEL DB v2r5

Category: ACCESS CONTROL

Plugin: PostgreSQLDB

Control ID: 12dcd98117b7f36a30d0a7191f200de14e3305943fdc67d7fca922791050b8df

Detections

Analytics

PGS9-00-011600 - PostgreSQL must automatically terminate a user session after organization-defined conditions or trigger events requiring session disconnect.

Information

Solution

See Also

Item Details