sysmaint - System Maintenance User

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• Default Passwords
• Passwords
• User Management
• Login
• Login Spoofing
• Safely Use Root Commands
• sysmaint user
• Unrestricted Admin Mode
• Protection against Physical Attacks
• User Account Isolation (developers)
• user-sysmaint-split (developers)

Starting from Kicksecure version 17.3.0.5 Xfce and above, Kicksecure comes with user-sysmaint-split by default.

There are two accounts:

• user - For daily activities.
• sysmaint - For system maintenance administrative activities, such as installing software or upgrading.

This is a security feature. (rationale)

The opposite of user-sysmaint-split is Unrestricted Admin Mode, which users can opt in to enable.

Introduction

sysmaint - system maintenance

Status

Warning: This is for testers-only!

Documentation for this is incomplete. Contributions are happily considered! See this for potential alternatives.

Default Installation Status

• Old versions: Kicksecure build versions up to 17.2.8.5 will not be upgraded to install user-sysmaint-split by default. Users however can opt-in to install it, see #Installation. The package will likely get installed by default when major Release Upgrade to version 18 is performed.
• New versions:
  • host: Meta package kicksecure-host-xfce will come with user-sysmaint-split by default.
  • CLI: Meta package kicksecure-host-cli will not come with user-sysmaint-split by default.
  • servers: user-sysmaint-split will not be installed by default on servers.
  • Distribution Morphing: Depending on chosen meta package.

Version Overview

Feature	Kicksecure Xfce (GUI)	Kicksecure CLI
user-sysmaint-split	Yes, installed by default in new images.	No, not installed by default.
Old Versions	No, will not be automatically installed during the current release cycle to avoid breaking existing user workflows.	No, not applicable, will remain sudo passwordless by default.
New Images	Yes, will come with user-sysmaint-split installed by default.	No, user-sysmaint-split will not be included.
Release Upgrade	Yes, user-sysmaint-split will be installed by default.	No, user-sysmaint-split will not be included.
Opt-Out	Yes, supported via custom configurations.	Yes
Opt-In	Yes, user-sysmaint-split can be installed at any time.	Yes

Installation

Install package(s) user-sysmaint-split sysmaint-panel following these instructions

1 Platform specific notice.

• Kicksecure: No special notice.
• Kicksecure-Qubes: In Template.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system .

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the user-sysmaint-split sysmaint-panel package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends user-sysmaint-split sysmaint-panel

4 Platform specific notice.

• Kicksecure: No special notice.
• Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification .

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) user-sysmaint-split sysmaint-panel is complete.

Usage

Select your platform.

Kicksecure

The sysmaint desktop session.

The sysmaint console session.

When user-sysmaint-split is installed, the account user will no longer be able to use privilege escalation tools (sudo, su, pkexec) when logged into any account other than sysmaint. Features of Kicksecure that require privilege escalation will also no longer work. (See Dev/sudo. This will probably be fixed before release.)

This change takes effect immediately.

To perform system maintenance tasks such as checking for software updates, installing updates, etc, the user will have to reboot into the sysmaint account. To do this, restart the system normally, then select PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINT (For system maintenance.) from the boot menu. The system will boot into a minimal desktop session with the System Maintenance Panel running. To reduce attack surface, most superfluous background services are suppressed while booted into the sysmaint account.

The sysmaint desktop session is intentionally minimal and not suited for normal desktop use. This is to discourage using it for work that has a higher risk of causing a difficult-to-avoid system compromise (such as web browsing). Quick shortcuts are provided for simple software management and system administration tasks, while more advanced tasks can be performed from a terminal. The sudo and pkexec commands will be usable here.

Once you are done with system maintenance tasks, click "Reboot" to reboot the system. Then boot into PERSISTENT mode USER (For daily activities.) or LIVE mode USER (For daily activities.). This will provide you with a standard desktop session.

You can also log into the sysmaint account from a virtual consoles (tty). Simply input the account name sysmaint at the login prompt. This session behaves identically to a typical virtual console session. A short informational message will be printed after login reminding you that the sysmaint account must be used with caution.

Qubes Kicksecure

Qubes Kicksecure cannot be booted into sysmaint mode yet. However, user-sysmaint-split is useful in Qubes VMs too because it makes SUID privilege escalation tools (sudo, su, pkexec) inaccessible for account user.

Fast User Switching

Select your platform.

Kicksecure

It is not possible to switch from account user to sysmaint using:

• Start Menu → logout
• Start Menu → switch user

This is a security feature.

Instead, reboot into sysmaint mode is required, as documented above.

Qubes Kicksecure

Not applicable.

Notes

• sysmaint account restrictions: Several restrictions are imposed to reduce the risk of the sysmaint account becoming compromised:
  • Locked access depending on boot mode: The sysmaint account is locked and cannot be logged into when booted into modes other than PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINT.
  • Session limitation: Logging into the sysmaint account using anything other than the special sysmaint desktop session is prohibited.
  • Discouragement of other logins: When booted in PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINT, you will be discouraged (but not entirely prevented) from logging into accounts other than sysmaint. Locking accounts such as account user is not implemented, since doing so would make it very tricky or even impossible for the user to permanently lock accounts themselves.

Questions and Answers

• Why is there a separate sysmaint account?
  • See Rationale for Separate sysmaint Account.

• Why is it required to boot into sysmaint mode, why not simply use start menu → switch user? (Fast User Switching)
  • This is to mitigate login spoofing attacks and to to prevent sudo password sniffing.

• How to go back to unrestricted admin mode, where user user can use sudo?
  • See #Uninstallation.

user-sysmaint-split - GUI vs CLI - Default Installation Status Differences

user-sysmaint-split is different for the graphical user interface (GUI) versus the command line interface (CLI) version.

In the future, the CLI version will be improved to be more suitable for servers.

Server support for user-sysmaint-split, however, isn't as sophisticated yet as it is for the GUI version. For some server use cases, user-sysmaint-split may be less needed or unneeded. This topic is elaborated in the development chapter user-sysmaint-split Server Support .

Uninstallation

See Uninstalling user-sysmaint-split and enabling Unrestricted Admin Mode.

Developers

• User Account Isolation (developers)
• user-sysmaint-split (developers)
• https://github.com/Kicksecure/user-sysmaint-split
• https://github.com/Kicksecure/sysmaint-panel

Footnotes

Kicksecure A secure by default operating system with the latest security research in place.

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