user resource

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Use the user Chef InSpec audit resource to test user profiles for a single, known/expected local user, including the groups to which that user belongs, the frequency of required password changes, and the directory paths to home and shell.

Availability

Installation

This resource is distributed along with Chef InSpec itself. You can use it automatically.

Version

This resource first became available in v1.0.0 of InSpec.

Syntax

A user resource block declares a user name, and then one (or more) matchers:

describe user('root') do
  it { should exist }
  its('uid') { should eq 1234 }
  its('gid') { should eq 1234 }
  its('group') { should eq 'root' }
  its('groups') { should eq ['root', 'other']}
  its('home') { should eq '/root' }
  its('shell') { should eq '/bin/bash' }
  its('mindays') { should eq 0 }
  its('maxdays') { should eq 90 }
  its('warndays') { should eq 8 }
  its('passwordage') { should eq 355 }
  its('maxbadpasswords') { should eq nil } // Only valid on Windows OS
  its('badpasswordattempts') { should eq 0 }
  its('lastlogin') { should eq nil } // Only valid on Windows OS
end

where

• ('root') is the user to be tested
• it { should exist } tests if the user exists
• gid, group, groups, home, maxdays, mindays, shell, uid, warndays´, passwordage, maxbadpasswords, badpasswordattempts and lastlogin are valid matchers for this resource

Properties

gid

The gid property tests the group identifier:

its('gid') { should eq 1234 }

where 1234 represents the user identifier. The gid option is only available on Linux and will return nil for Windows os.

group

The group property tests the group to which the user belongs:

its('group') { should eq 'root' }

where root represents the group. The group option is only available on Linux and will return nil for Windows os.

groups

The groups property tests two (or more) groups to which the user belongs:

its('groups') { should eq ['root', 'other'] }

home

The home property tests the home directory path for the user:

its('home') { should eq '/root' }

maxdays

The maxdays property tests the maximum number of days between password changes:

its('maxdays') { should eq 99 }

where 99 represents the maximum number of days.

mindays

The mindays property tests the minimum number of days between password changes:

its('mindays') { should eq 0 }

where 0 represents the maximum number of days.

shell

The shell property tests the path to the default shell for the user:

its('shell') { should eq '/bin/bash' }

uid

The uid property tests the user identifier:

its('uid') { should eq 1234 }

where 1234 represents the user identifier.

warndays

The warndays property tests the number of days a user is warned before a password must be changed:

its('warndays') { should eq 5 }

where 5 represents the number of days a user is warned.

passwordage

The passwordage property tests the number of days a user changed its password:

its('passwordage') { should_be <= 365 }

where 365 represents the number of days since the last password change.

maxbadpasswords

The maxbadpasswords property tests the count of max badpassword settings for a specific user.

its('maxbadpasswords') { should eq 7 }

where 7 is the count of maximum bad password attempts.

badpasswordattempts

The badpasswordattempts property tests the count of bad password attempts for a user.

its('badpasswordattempts') { should eq 0 }

where 0 is the count of bad passwords for a user. On Linux based operating systems it relies on lastb and for Windows it uses information stored for the user object. These settings will be reset to 0 depending on your operating system configuration.

lastlogin

The lastlogin property tests the last login date for a specific user.

its('lastlogin') { should eq nil }

The nil value means this user has never logged in.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this Chef InSpec audit resource.

Verify available users for the MySQL server

describe user('root') do
  it { should exist }
  its('uid') { should eq 0 }
  its('groups') { should eq ['root'] }
end

describe user('mysql') do
 it { should_not exist }
end

Test users on multiple platforms

The nginx user is typically www-data, but on CentOS it’s nginx. The following example shows how to test for the nginx user with a single test, but accounting for all platforms:

web_user = 'www-data'
web_user = 'nginx' if os[:family] == 'centos'

describe user(web_user) do
  it { should exist }
end

Matchers

For a full list of available matchers, please visit our matchers page.

exist

The exist matcher tests if the named user exists:

it { should exist }