Red Hat OpenShift policies in DevOps Config

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Red Hat OpenShift policies in DevOps Config

    The DevOps Config Policy content pack includes default policies designed to validate Red Hat OpenShift configurations. These policies help ensure that configurations conform to best practices and security standards. While the default policies cannot be modified directly, ServiceNow customers can copy and customize them to fit their specific environment and governance needs. Note that DevOps Config is being prepared for deprecation starting with the Washington D.C. release but will remain supported for existing instances.

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    Key Features

    • Audit Log Configuration Checks: Policies verify that audit log settings such as maximum backup files, maximum file size, and audit log file paths are properly set. Non-compliance is flagged if parameters are missing or outside expected limits.
    • Authentication Mechanism Validation: Checks ensure that basic authentication and static token authentication are not used, promoting more secure authentication methods.
    • Container Security Controls: Policies confirm that containers do not run with privileged access and that security context constraints prevent sharing of the host PID namespace.
    • API Server and Kubelet Settings Verification: Validates that critical configurations such as disabling read-only ports, enabling the NamespaceLifecycle admission plugin, and setting request timeouts are properly enforced.
    • Streaming Connection Timeout Enforcement: Ensures timeouts are set on streaming connections to protect against denial-of-service attacks and resource exhaustion.

    Practical Value for ServiceNow Customers

    By leveraging these predefined policies, customers can automate compliance checks and governance of their OpenShift environments directly within ServiceNow. This reduces manual oversight, enhances security, and helps maintain operational consistency. Customizing copies of these policies allows customers to tailor validations to their organizational standards and risk tolerance.

    Overall, these policies enable ServiceNow customers to effectively monitor and validate critical OpenShift configuration parameters, leading to improved security posture and operational reliability in their DevOps workflows.

    By default, the DevOps Config Policy content pack contains a set of policies to validate your Red Hat OpenShift configuration.

    Important:
    Starting with the Washington D.C. release, DevOps Config is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported.
    You can use or customize these default DevOps Config policies to validate that your configuration data content is conformable, or administrate the full life cycle of PaCE policies.
    Note:
    You can’t modify the default policies. However, you can make a copy of the policy and customize your copy.
    Table 1. First-letter navigation for policies on this page

    A | B | C | H | N | R | S | T

    Audit Log Maximum Backup Is Set (openshift_audit_log_maxbackup_is_set)

    Checks whether the maximum number of old audit log files to be retained for API servers is set.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the --audit-log-maxbackup argument is either not set or not within the specified limits.

    Input arguments
    • lowerLimit
      • The lower limit of the --audit-log-maxbackup argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: False
    • upperLimit
      • The upper limit of the --audit-log-maxbackup argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: False

    Audit Log Maximum File Size Is Set (openshift_audit_log_maxsize_is_set)

    Checks whether the maximum file size specified as the rollover threshold for audit log files is set. After an audit log file reaches the maximum file size, the original audit log file is renamed and a new log file with the original name is created.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the --audit-log-maxsize argument is either not set or not within the specified limits.

    Input arguments
    • lowerLimit
      • The lower memory limit of the --audit-log-maxsize argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: True
    • upperLimit
      • The upper memory limit of the --audit-log-maxsize argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: True

    Audit Log Path Isn't Set (openshift_audit_log_path_is_not_set)

    Checks whether the auditing is enabled in OpenShift and the audit log file path is set.

    Results into a non-compliant status when either the --audit-log-path argument for openshift-kube-apiserver isn’t set to /var/log/kube-apiserver/audit.log or the --audit-log-path argument for openshift-apiserver isn’t set to /var/log/openshift-apiserver/audit.log.

    Basic Auth File Isn’t Set (openshift_basic_auth_file_is_not_set)

    Checks whether OpenShift doesn’t use the basic authentication mechanism to authenticate requests to the API server.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the --basic-auth-file argument is set.

    Containers Run Without Privilege Access (openshift_container_is_not_privileged)

    Checks whether the containers within an OpenShift pod are run without privileged access.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the privileged field for a container is set to true.

    Host PID Namespace Is Disabled (openshift_scc_with_hostPID_namespace_disabled)

    Checks whether there is at least one security context constraint (SCC) is defined that doesn’t allow containers to share the host PID namespace.

    Results into a warning when there’s an SCC defined with the allowHostPID field set to true.

    NamespaceLifecycle Plugin Is Enabled (openshift_namespacelifecycle_plugin_is_enabled)

    Checks whether the admission control plugin NamespaceLifecycle is enabled.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the NamespaceLifecycle plugin is disabled.

    Read-Only Port Is Disabled (openshift_read_only_port_disabled)

    Checks whether the Kubelet API server isn’t using the read-only port or the read-only port is set to 0.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the kubelet-read-only-port argument isn’t set to 0.

    Request Timeout Is Set (openshift_request_timeout_is_set)

    Checks whether the global request timeout for API servers is set.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the --min-request-timeout argument is either not set or not within the specified limits.

    Input arguments
    • lowerLimit
      • The lower limit of the --min-request-timeout argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: False
    • upperLimit
      • The upper limit of the --min-request-timeout argument.
      • Type: Integer
      • Mandatory: False

    Streaming Connections Timeout Isn't Disabled (openshift_streaming_connections_timeout_not_disabled)

    Checks whether the timeouts are set on streaming connections to ensure protection against denial-of-service attacks, inactive connections, and ephemeral ports exhaustion.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the streamingConnectionIdleTimeout argument is set to 0 in the Kubelet config file.

    Token Auth File Isn’t Set (openshift_token_auth_file_is_not_set)

    Checks whether OpenShift doesn't use a static token file to authenticate requests to the API server.

    Results into a non-compliant status when the --token-auth-file argument is set.