- Use labels efficiently
- For example, use only the minimal necessary labels
- Labels must have a clear and objective description
- New labels should be created in lowercase
- New labels should be agnostic to PRs and Issues
- Labels related to the same group/category should share the same colors, like in these examples:
- Assessment languages related labels, like "OVAL" and "OCIL", share the color #0e8a16
- Attention required labels, like "BLOCKER" and "productization-issue", share the color #e11d21
- Benchmarks related labels, like "CIS" and "STIG", share the color #08d2d8
- Components related labels, like "Test Suite" and "Documentation", share the color #84b6eb
- Improvements related labels, like "New Product" or "New Rule", share the color #c2e0c6
- "EyeCatcher" related labels, like a "Highlight" or "bugfix", share the color #fbca04
- Product related labels, like "RHEL" and "Ubuntu", share the color #4141f4
- Remediation related labels, like "Ansible" and "Bash", share the color #9bf442
- It is possible to have custom labels for ad-hoc tasks. These must be properly managed and removed when no longer necessary.
- Be careful changing labels names or removing labels. Some labels are used by bots and automated processes, like the release changelog generation:
- Should follow the template
- Shall remove the sample text from the template pull request
- Shall not have merge commits, they should have to be taken out by rebasing
- Should target
master
, unless pulling an already merged pull request to a stabilization branch
- Must have the milestone set correctly
- Must have the correct labels
- Should be assigned to the reviewers
- Should use the merge commit method
- Should use the GitHub Web UI to document and ensure code reviews are done correctly
Prioritize the human-readability of code to its machine efficiency. In practice, this implies:
- Keep functions and methods small, just a few of lines, so it is possible to understand what they do with minimal effort. Prioritize the code readability over line count or code performance.
- Don't mix low-level and high-level code in one function. Extract functionality to separate functions or convert functions into classes with multiple methods to avoid this.
- If a function contains try/except block, there should be no other logic present apart from exception handling.
- Name variables and functions properly, don't hesitate to use longer identifiers. Use explanatory variables to help the code to express itself -- assign a result of the operation into a variable that describes its meaning even if you intend to use it only once.
- Write comments if and only if there is no chance for the code to explain itself.
When working with existing code that doesn't satisfy these recommendations, simply leave the code in a better shape than the shape in which it was before, and keep these guidelines in mind when writing new code.
- Include tests for your contribution.
- Don't take part in making files longer -- files longer than 400 lines should be an exception. Add your new code into a new file, and possibly move existing code to it in the same or in a follow-up PR.
- Don't copy-paste code, use e.g. Jinja macros to reduce duplication. Exception to this rule is code that is identical another piece of code only by coincidence, and there is a substantial probability that the code can diverge.
- Don't put authorship information into the code, Git tracks authorship for you. Don't copy-paste license text into source files -- use SPDX IDs for that purpose.
- Don't commit one-off scripts to the project. On occasions when one would like to get a feedback on the approach or debug the script, that makes automated changes to the project in a PR, it is strongly recommended to add a removal commit before merging the PR.
- Shall use UNIX style line endings
- Shall have one newline at the end of the file
- Shall not have trailing whitespace, unless syntactically necessary
- File names must:
- Be in lower case
- Have words separated by an underscore
- Have a total path length less than 250 characters
- Shall not use "smart quotes" or curved quotes
- Maximum line length should be 99 characters
- Shall use 4-space indentation
- Shall have a docstring comment describe what the macro does
- Shall have a docstring comment describing all parameters and their types
- Types shall be Python class names. (E.g.
str
,bool
,dict
, etc) - Shall be last section of the docstring
- Shall have one blank after list before the close of the docstring block
- Types shall be Python class names. (E.g.
- Shall have two blank lines between macros
- All Python files should follow PEP 8
- We use PEP 8 Speaks and it leaves a comment on PR if you have PEP8 issues in the Python file(s) you touched
- We do make one change from PEP 8, our maximum line length is 99 characters
- Methods should be defined before they are called
- The files in the build system shall be Python 2.7 and Python 3 compatible
- Utilities may only support Python 3
- Shall use the
.py
for the file extension - Shall use 4-space indentation
- New Python 3 methods and scripts should have type hints
- All new YAML files shall use 4-space indentation
- Existing YAML files may use 2-space indentation
- Must be able to be parsed with PyYAML
- Shall use the
.yml
vs.yaml
for the file extension - Shall have one blank line between sections
The sections below marked with an (HTML Like)
means that a limited number of HTML elements are supported in these sections.
The lists of elements below are not fully inclusive.
Any elements that are not strictly for formatting shall not be used.
We support the following elements:
b
- Boldfacebr
- Line breakcode
- Inline code blocksi
- Italicspre
- Code blocktt
- Inline code blocks
The following elements are not allowed:
script
video
audio
This section describes the styleguide around the rule.yml
files.
- All the above YAML rules apply.
- A rule should only address one configuration item change.
- A variable should be when a configuration change can be multiple different values.
- When writing rule and a template is available, the template should be used over custom content
Rules sections must be in the following order, if they are present.
documentation_complete
prodtype
- Comma separated list
- No spaces between items
- Items must be in alphabetical order
title
- Must be one line
- Must be in Title case
- Must be short and descriptive
- Must align the directory name the
rule.yml
is in
description
(HTML Like)rationale
(HTML Like)severity
identifiers
- Keys must be in alphabetical order
references
- Keys must be in alphabetical order
platforms
ocil_clause
ocil
(HTML Like)fixtext
(HTML Like)srg_requirement
warnings
- All subsections are HTML-Like
- If defined must have at least one of the following sub-sections:
general
dependency
performance
management
functionality
conflicts
- Must be a valid rule id
requires
- Must be a valid rule id
template
This section describes the styleguide around the group.yml
files.
- All the above YAML rules apply
- A group should only contain rules that effect the same software or service
Group sections must be in the following order, if present.
documentation_complete
title
- Must be in Title case
platforms
description
(HTML-Like)
This section describes the styleguide around the benchmark.yml
files.
All the above YAML rules apply.
Benchmark sections must be in the following order, if they are present.
documentation_complete
status
title
- Must be in Title case
description
(HTML-Like)notice
(HTML-Like)front-matter
(HTML-Like)rear-matter
(HTML-Like)version
These rules apply to the files in controls/
.
All the above YAML rules apply.
Control sections must be in the following order, if they are present.
policy
title
- Must be in Title case
id
- Must be short
- Must be lowercase
- If product specific should be in the format
standard_product
. For example CIS on RHEL8 would becis_rhel8
- Should match the filename of the control
- Words shall be separated by an underscore
version
- Should be the same as the standard
source
- URL to the standard
controls
id
levels
- Should be in lowercase
- Must have words separated by an underscore
- Shall follow the standard
title
- Shall be one line
status
notes
- Must be a block
rules
- Must be a list of valid rule id
Control sections must be in the following order, all sections are required unless otherwise noted.
documentation_complete
id
metadata
reference
version
SMEs
title
- Shall be short and descriptive
description
(HTML-Like)extends
(Optional)- Must be valid id of another profile id
selections
- Must be valid rule ids
All remediations should have the following header with the appropriate values. The header should start on the first line.
# platform = multi_platform_all
# reboot = false
# strategy = enable
# complexity = low
# disruption = low
Unless there is a good reason this should be multi_platform_all
.
But if the rule only applies to a specific operating system or family of operating then should be used.
The values can be product names or values from MULTI_PLATFORM_LIST
or MULTI_PLATFORM_LIST
in ssg/constants.py.
Must be true or false. Shall be true if the system needs to be rebooted in order for the changes to take effect.
Should be one of the following values:
- configure
- disable
- enable
- patch
- restrict
- unknown
Value must be low, medium, or high.
Value must be low, medium, or high.
- Shall follow all the rules in the YAML section
- Should prefer using Ansible modules over just calling system commands
- Shall be written to pass
ansible-lint
- Should use Jinja macros instead of shared functions
- Must use 4-space indentation
- Shall put
do
orthen
on the same line asfor
orif
respectively, e.g.for file in *; do
- Shall follow all the rules in the YAML section
- Shall use the
.xml
for the file extension - Must be able to be parsed by Python's XML parser
- Shall use 4-space indentation
- The
id
attribute of<definition>
should be{{{ rule_id }}}
- The elements should be in the following order:
def-group
definition
metadata
- Should be defined by the
oval_metadata
macro
- Should be defined by the
criteria
- Like OVAL
test
,object
, andstate
should have the same name after their respective prefix. - Like OVAL
test
,object
, andstate
should group together, if there are many tests the order below should be repeated for each group.test
object
state
- If an element has an optional a
comment
it should be added
id
should start withtest_
id
should start withobj_
id
should start withstate_
- Shall always do something, even if testing default behavior
- Shall test one change
- Shall use the
.sh
for the file extension - Shall use the
#!/bin/bash
shebang at the first line - Shall have a single empty line after the shebang line or after the last header parameter, like in the following valid examples:
#!/bin/bash
<code here>
or
#!/bin/bash
# packages = audit
<code here>
- Must follow all the rules in the Bash section
- Shall have one sentence per line
- Must have one blank line above headings
- Must be in Title case
- Shall use the
.md
for the file extension
- Shall use the
.adoc
for the file extension - Shall not be used for new documentation
- Shall use the
.rst
for the file extension - Must only be used when necessary