Description
The crond service is used to execute commands at
preconfigured times. It is required by almost all systems to perform necessary
maintenance tasks, such as notifying root of system activity.
The cron service can be enabled with the following command:
$ sudo systemctl enable cron.service
Rationale
Due to its usage for maintenance and security-supporting tasks,
enabling the cron daemon is essential.
Shell script
The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.
# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; then
SYSTEMCTL\_EXEC='/usr/bin/systemctl'
"$SYSTEMCTL\_EXEC" unmask 'cron.service'
"$SYSTEMCTL\_EXEC" start 'cron.service'
"$SYSTEMCTL\_EXEC" enable 'cron.service'
else
>&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi
Ansible playbook
The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.
- name: Enable service cron
block:
- name: Gather the package facts
package\_facts:
manager: auto
- name: Enable service cron
systemd:
name: cron
enabled: 'yes'
state: started
masked: 'no'
when:
- '"cron" in ansible\_facts.packages'
when: ansible\_virtualization\_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
tags:
- NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
- PCI-DSSv4-2.2.6
- enable\_strategy
- low\_complexity
- low\_disruption
- medium\_severity
- no\_reboot\_needed
- service\_cron\_enabled
