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4.12 Install the Latest Operating System Updates On Your Virtual Machines in All Projects (Manual)​

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Description​

For the virtual machines where you manage the operating system in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), you are responsible for keeping these operating systems and programs up to date. There are multiple ways to manage updates yourself that would be difficult to fit into one recommendation. Check the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks for each of your Operating Systems as well for potential solutions there. This recommendation uses a feature in Google Cloud via its VM manager API to manage updates called Operating System Patch Management (referred to OS Patch Management from here on out). This may requires installing the OS Config API if it is not already installed. Also if you install custom operating systems, they may not functionally support the local OS config agent required to gather operating system patch information and issue update commands. These update commands are the default Linux and Windows commands to install updates such as yum or apt. This feature allows for a central management to issue those commands. OS Patch management also does not host the updates itself, so your VMs need to be public or be able to access the internet. This is not the only Patch Management solution available to your organization and you should weigh your needs before committing to using this.

Rationale​

Keeping an operating system up to date is the best way to secure against ever evolving known vulnerabilities and bugs in programs that can be used in cyber attacks by bad actors.

Impact​

Most Operating Systems require a restart or changing critical resources to apply the updates. Make certain to apply updates during a time of low availability, as unforeseen complications may cause an outage of services. Using the Google Cloud VM manager for its OS Patch management will incur additional costs for each VM managed by it. Please view the VM manager pricing reference for further information.

Audit​

Verifying that VM Manager and related services are installed on your Compute Operating Systems on a project by project basis

Determine if OS Config API is Enabled for the Project​

  1. Navigate into a project. In the expanded hamburger menu located at the top left of the screen hover over "APIs & Services". Then in the menu right of that select "API Libraries"
  2. Search for "VM Manager (OS Config API) or scroll down in the left hand column and select the filter labeled "Compute" where it is the last listed. Open this API.
  3. Verify the blue button at the top is enabled.

Determine if VM Instances have correct metadata tags for OSConfig parsing​

  1. From the main Google Cloud console, open the hamburger menu in the top left. Mouse over Computer Engine to expand the menu next to it.
  2. Under the "Settings" heading, select "Metadata".
  3. In this view there will be a list of the project wide metadata tags for VMs. Determine if the tag "enable-osconfig" is set to "true".

Determine if the Operating System of VM Instances have the local OS-Config Agent running​

There is no way to determine this from the Google Cloud console. The only way is to run operating specific commands locally inside the operating system via remote connection. For the sake of brevity of this recommendation please view the docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup reference at the bottom of the page. If you initialized your VM instance with a Google Supplied OS Image with a build date of later than v20200114 it will have the service installed. You should still determine its status for proper operation.

Verify the service account you have setup for the project in Recommendation 4.1 is running​

  1. Go to the VM instances page by visiting: https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/instances.
  2. Click on each instance name to go to its VM instance details page.
  3. Under the section Service Account, take note of the service account
  4. Run the commands locally for your operating system that are located at the docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup#service-account-enabled reference located at the bottom of this page. They should return the name of your service account.

Determine if Instances can connect to public update hosting​

Linux

Debian Based Operating Systems
sudo apt update

The output should have a numbered list of lines with Hit: URL of updates.

Redhat Based Operating Systems
yum check-update

The output should show a list of packages that have updates available.

Windows

ping http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

The ping should successfully be delivered and received.

Determine if OS Config API is Enabled for the Project​

  1. In each project you wish to enable run the following command
gcloud services list
  1. If osconfig.googleapis.com is in the left hand column it is enabled for this project.

Determine if VM Manager is Enabled for the Project​

  1. Within the project run the following command:
gcloud compute instances os-inventory describe VM-NAME \
 --zone=ZONE

The output will look like

INSTANCE_ID INSTANCE_NAME OS OSCONFIG_AGENT_VERSION UPDATE_TIME
29255009728795105 centos7 CentOS Linux 7 (Core) 20210217.00-g1.el7 2021-04-12T22:19:36.559Z
5138980234596718741 rhel-8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 (Ootpa) 20210316.00-g1.el8 2021-09-16T17:19:24Z
7127836223366142250 windows Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Datacenter 20210316.00.0+win@1 2021-09-16T17:13:18Z

Determine if VM Instances have correct metadata tags for OSConfig parsing​

  1. Select the project you want to view tagging in.

Google Cloud Console

  1. From the main Google Cloud console, open the hamburger menu in the top left. Mouse over Computer Engine to expand the menu next to it.
  2. Under the "Settings" heading, select "Metadata".
  3. In this view there will be a list of the project wide metadata tags for Vms. Verify a tag of ‘enable-osconfig’ is in this list and it is set to ‘true’.

Command Line

Run the following command to view instance data

gcloud compute instances list --format="table(name,status,tags.list())"

On each instance it should have a tag of ‘enable-osconfig’ set to ‘true’

Determine if the Operating System of VM Instances have the local OS-Config Agent running​

There is no way to determine this from the Google Cloud CLI. The best way is to run the the commands inside the operating system located at 'Check OS-Config agent is installed and running' at the /docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup reference at the bottom of the page. If you initialized your VM instance with a Google Supplied OS Image with a build date of later than v20200114 it will have the service installed. You should still determine its status.

Verify the service account you have setup for the project in Recommendation 4.1 is running​

  1. Go to the VM instances page by visiting: https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/instances.
  2. Click on each instance name to go to its VM instance details page.
  3. Under the section Service Account, take note of the service account
  4. View the compute/docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup#service-account-enabled resource at the bottom of the page for operating system specific commands to run locally.

Determine if Instances can connect to public update hosting​

Linux

Debian Based Operating Systems
sudo apt update

The output should have a numbered list of lines with Hit: URL of updates.

Redhat Based Operating Systems
yum check-update

The output should show a list of packages that have updates available.

Windows

ping http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

The ping should successfully be delivered and received.

Remediation​

Enabling OS Patch Management on a Project by Project Basis

Install OS Config API for the Project​

  1. Navigate into a project. In the expanded hamburger menu located at the top left of the screen hover over "APIs & Services". Then in the menu right of that select "API Libraries".
  2. Search for "VM Manager (OS Config API)" or scroll down in the left hand column and select the filter labeled "Compute" where it is the last listed. Open this API.
  3. Click the blue 'Enable' button.

Add MetaData Tags for OSConfig Parsing​

  1. From the main Google Cloud console, open the hamburger menu in the top left. Mouse over Computer Engine to expand the menu next to it.
  2. Under the "Settings" heading, select "Metadata".
  3. In this view there is a list of the project wide metadata tags for VMs. Click edit and 'add item' in the key column type 'enable-osconfig' and in the value column set it to 'true'.

From Command Line

  1. For project wide tagging, run the following command:
gcloud compute project-info add-metadata \
 --project <PROJECT_ID>\
 --metadata=enable-osconfig=TRUE

Please see the reference /compute/docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup#metadata-enabled at the bottom for more options like instance specific tagging.

note

Adding a new tag via command line may overwrite existing tags. You need to do this at a time of low usage for the least impact.

Install and Start the Local OSConfig for Data Parsing​

There is no way to centrally manage or start the Local OSConfig agent. Please view the reference of manage-os#agent-install to view specific operating system commands.

Setup a project wide Service Account​

Please view Recommendation 4.1 to view how to setup a service account. Rerun the audit procedure to test if it has taken effect.

Enable Network Address Translation (NAT) or Configure Private Google Access to allow Access to Public Update Hosting​

For the sake of brevity, please see the attached resources to enable NAT or Private Google Access. Rerun the audit procedure to test if it has taken effect.

From Command Line:

Install OS Config API for the Project​

  1. In each project you wish to audit, run:
gcloud services enable osconfig.googleapis.com

Install and Start the Local OSConfig for Data Parsing​

Please view the reference of manage-os#agent-install to view specific operating system commands.

Setup a project wide Service Account​

Please view Recommendation 4.1 to view how to setup a service account. Rerun the audit procedure to test if it has taken effect.

Enable NAT or Configure Private Google Access to allow Access to Public Update Hosting​

For the sake of brevity, please see the attached resources to enable NAT or Private Google Access. Rerun the audit procedure to test if it has taken effect.

Determine if Instances can connect to public update hosting​

Linux Debian Based Operating Systems

sudo apt update

The output should have a numbered list of lines with Hit: URL of updates.

Redhat Based Operating Systems

yum check-update

The output should show a list of packages that have updates available.

Windows

ping http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

The URL is reachable.

Default Value​

By default, most operating systems and programs do not update themselves. The Google Cloud VM Manager which is a dependency of the OS Patch management feature is installed on Google Built OS images with a build date of v20200114 or later. The VM manager is not enabled in a project by default and will need to be setup.

References​

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/manage-os
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/os-patch-management
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/vm-manager
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/os-details#vm-manager
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/vm-manager#pricing
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/view-os-details#view-data-tools
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/os-patch-management/create-patch-job
https://cloud.google.com/nat/docs/set-up-network-address-translation
https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/configure-private-google-access
https://workbench.cisecurity.org/sections/811638/recommendations/1334335
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/manage-os#agent-install
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup#service-account-enabled
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/os-patch-management#use-dashboard
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/troubleshooting/vm-manager/verify-setup#metadata-enabled

Additional Information​

This is not your only solution to handle updates. This is a Google Cloud specific recommendation to leverage a resource to solve the need for comprehensive update procedures and policy. If you have a solution already in place you do not need to make the switch.

There are also further resources that would be out of the scope of this recommendation. If you need to allow your VMs to access public hosted updates, please see the reference to setup NAT or Private Google Access.

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