Profile Applicability:
 Level 1


Description:
 Duplicate group names can cause inconsistencies and unexpected behavior in user permissions and access control. Ensuring unique group names maintains the integrity of group-based security policies.

Rationale:
 Preventing duplicate group names avoids confusion in group membership management and reduces the risk of privilege escalation or access control misconfigurations.

Impact:
 Pros:

  • Ensures consistent and predictable group permissions.

  • Simplifies user and group management.

Cons:

  • Removal or renaming of duplicate groups may affect existing user permissions if not carefully managed.

Default Value:
 Duplicate group names may exist due to manual misconfiguration or system inconsistencies.

Pre-requisites:

  • Root or sudo privileges to review and modify group configurations.

Remediation:

Test Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. List all group names and identify duplicates:

    cut -d: -f1 /etc/group | sort | uniq -d

  2. Verify that the output is empty, indicating no duplicates.

Implementation Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. For each duplicate group name found, rename or remove duplicates carefully:

    groupmod -n <new_group_name> <old_group_name>  
groupdel <duplicate_group_name>
      

  2. Ensure user memberships are preserved or reassigned as necessary.

Backout Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. Restore original group names from backups if needed.

  2. Reassign users to groups if any memberships were lost.

References: