Profile Applicability:
 • Level 1

Description:
 The systemd-journal-remote service allows a system to receive and store journal logs from remote machines, facilitating centralized logging. Enabling this service is essential when centralized log collection is part of the site’s logging policy.

Rationale:
 Enabling systemd-journal-remote supports centralized audit logging, improving log aggregation, analysis, and compliance monitoring across multiple systems.

Impact:
 Pros:

  • Facilitates centralized logging for better monitoring and incident response.

  • Simplifies management of logs from multiple hosts.

Cons:

  • Increases network and storage resource usage.

  • Requires secure configuration to prevent unauthorized log injection.

Default Value:
 The systemd-journal-remote service is typically disabled by default.

Pre-requisites:

  • Root or sudo privileges to manage system services.

Remediation:

Test Plan:

Using Linux command line:

Check if the systemd-journal-remote service is enabled:

systemctl is-enabled systemd-journal-remote

Check if the service is active:

systemctl is-active systemd-journal-remote

Implementation Plan:

Using Linux command line:

Enable the systemd-journal-remote service:

systemctl enable systemd-journal-remote

Start the service:

systemctl start systemd-journal-remote

Verify the service status:

systemctl is-enabled systemd-journal-remote  
systemctl is-active systemd-journal-remote

Backout Plan:

Using Linux command line:

Disable the systemd-journal-remote service if necessary:

systemctl disable systemd-journal-remote

Stop the service:

systemctl stop systemd-journal-remote
  1. Verify the service status.

References:

  • CIS Amazon Linux 2 Benchmark v3.0.0

  • systemd-journal-remote Documentation

  • Systemd Service Management