Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 • Release: 7 Benchmark Date: 05 Jan 2026
CAT II V-258077 RHEL-09-412080
RHEL 9 must terminate idle user sessions.
Discussion
Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port that has been left unattended.
Check Procedure
Verify RHEL 9 logs out sessions that are idle for 10 minutes with the following command: $ systemd-analyze cat-config systemd/logind.conf | grep StopIdleSessionSec #StopIdleSessionSec=infinity StopIdleSessionSec=600 If "StopIdleSessionSec" is not configured to "600" seconds, this is a finding.
Fix Action
Configure RHEL 9 to log out idle sessions. Create the directory if necessary: $ mkdir -p /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/ Create a *.conf file in /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/ with the following content: [Login] StopIdleSessionSec=600 KillUserProcesses=no Restart systemd-logind: $ systemctl restart systemd-logind