Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 • Release: 7 Benchmark Date: 05 Jan 2026

CAT II V-258174 RHEL-09-653125

RHEL 9 must have mail aliases to notify the information system security officer (ISSO) and system administrator (SA) (at a minimum) in the event of an audit processing failure.

Documentable No
Rule ID SV-258174r958424_rule
CCI References
CCI-000139

It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without this notification, the security personnel may be unaware of an impending failure of the audit capability, and system operation may be adversely affected. Audit processing failures include software/hardware errors, failures in the audit capturing mechanisms, and audit storage capacity being reached or exceeded. This requirement applies to each audit data storage repository (i.e., distinct information system component where audit records are stored), the centralized audit storage capacity of organizations (i.e., all audit data storage repositories combined), or both.

Check Procedure

Verify that RHEL 9 is configured to notify the appropriate interactive users in the event of an audit processing failure.

Find the alias maps that are being used with the following command:

$ postconf alias_maps 

alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases

Query the Postfix alias maps for an alias for the root user with the following command:

$ postmap -q root hash:/etc/aliases
isso

If an alias is not set, this is a finding.

Fix Action

Edit the aliases map file (by default /etc/aliases) used by Postfix and configure a root alias (using the user ISSO as an example):

root:    ISSO

and then update the aliases database with the command:

$ sudo newaliases