RHEL 9 must not have the tuned package installed.

STIG ID: RHEL-09-215055  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000095-GPOS-00049 | Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000366,CCI-000381

Vulnerability Discussion

It is detrimental for operating systems to provide, or install by default, functionality exceeding requirements or mission objectives. These unnecessary capabilities or services are often overlooked and therefore may remain unsecured. They increase the risk to the platform by providing additional attack vectors.

Operating systems are capable of providing a wide variety of functions and services. Some of the functions and services, provided by default, may not be necessary to support essential organizational operations (e.g., key missions, functions).

The tuned package contains a daemon that tunes the system settings dynamically. It does so by monitoring the usage of several system components periodically. Based on that information, components will then be put into lower or higher power savings modes to adapt to the current usage. The tuned package is not needed for normal OS operations.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000095-GPOS-00049, SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227

Check

Verify that the tuned package is not installed with the following command:

$ sudo dnf list --installed tuned

Error: No matching Packages to list

If the "tuned" package is installed and is not documented with the information system security officer (ISSO) as an operational requirement, this is a finding.

Fix

Remove the tuned package with the following command:

$ sudo dnf remove tuned