Rocky Linux 8.10

Option A: Azure Portal

• Open the Azure Marketplace and search for "Rocky Linux 8.10 SecureAnyCloud"
• Select the image and choose Create
• Configure the basics:
• Subscription: Select your Azure subscription
• Resource Group: Create new or select existing
• Virtual Machine Name: Enter a name for your VM
• Region: Select your preferred Azure region
• Size: Standard_B2s recommended
• Under Administrator Account, select SSH public key and enter your key
• Under Inbound Port Rules, allow SSH (port 22)
• Select Review + Create, then Create

Option B: Azure CLI

az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:rocky-8-10:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name my-rocky-8-10-vm \
  --image sac1647283583153:rocky-8-10:default:latest \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

Run these commands on your own workstation, not on the VM. Find the public IP, then connect:

az vm show --resource-group myResourceGroup --name my-rocky-8-10-vm --show-details --query publicIps -o tsv ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

There is no password to enter. If SSH asks for one, your client is not offering the key you supplied at create time.

Check that the machine runs the Rocky Linux 8.10 release:

cat /etc/rocky-release grep -E '^(NAME|VERSION|ID|PLATFORM_ID)=' /etc/os-release uname -rm

Expected output:

Rocky Linux release 8.10 (Green Obsidian) NAME="Rocky Linux" VERSION="8.10 (Green Obsidian)" ID="rocky" PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8" 4.18.0-553.146.1.el8_10.x86_64 x86_64

The kernel version carries an el8_10 tag. This tag shows that the machine tracks the 8.10 maintenance stream rather than an older 8-series minor release.

The image is fully updated at build time. dnf check-update returns exit code 100 when updates are pending and 0 when none are:

sudo dnf check-update echo "exit code: $?"

List the enabled repositories to confirm your update path is intact:

dnf repolist --enabled

Expected output:

repo id repo name appstream Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream baseos Rocky Linux 8 - BaseOS extras Rocky Linux 8 - Extras

Because 8.10 is the last minor release in the RHEL 8 family, applying updates keeps you on 8.10. Run updates on your own schedule:

sudo dnf upgrade -y

Reboot if a new kernel was installed:

sudo systemctl reboot

Confirm that SELinux is enforcing, that root is locked, and that SSH is key-only:

getenforce
sudo passwd -S root
sudo sshd -T | grep -E '^(permitrootlogin|passwordauthentication|pubkeyauthentication)'

Expected output:

Enforcing root LK 2026-07-25 0 99999 7 -1 permitrootlogin without-password pubkeyauthentication yes passwordauthentication no

without-password is how OpenSSH reports the prohibit-password setting. Both names mean the same thing: root may not authenticate with a password.

Confirm that the Azure Linux Agent, cloud-init and time synchronization are healthy, and check your resources:

systemctl is-active waagent
systemctl is-enabled waagent cloud-init --version
systemctl is-active chronyd df -h / free -h

waagent lets Azure provision your SSH key, resize the OS disk, run extensions and report VM health. Keep it active and enabled.

The Azure Network Security Group controls inbound and outbound traffic. It is usually the only place you need to open a port.

This image is a minimal build, so firewalld is not installed. With no host firewall in the way, your NSG rules take effect exactly as written, with no second layer to keep in sync. Confirm what is listening before you open anything:

ss -tlnp

On a fresh machine the only listener is sshd on port 22.

If your policy requires a host firewall as well, install and enable it yourself:

sudo dnf install -y firewalld
sudo systemctl enable --now firewalld
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=443/tcp sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Once firewalld is running, a port must be open in both the Azure NSG and firewalld before traffic reaches your service.

AppStream carries the application packages. Search it, then install what you need:

dnf search nginx

The 8 series uses modules. AppStream ships several versions of the same language or database as separate streams, so you can pick a version instead of taking the default.

dnf module list nginx

Install a package and enable it in the usual way, for example sudo dnf install -y nginx followed by sudo systemctl enable --now nginx.

The image ships with no human accounts, so azureuser is the only login until you add one. To add another administrator, create the account with sudo adduser <name> and add it to the wheel group with sudo usermod -aG wheel <name>. Then copy your public key into /home/<name>/.ssh/authorized_keys. Set mode 600 on the file and mode 700 on the .ssh directory, both owned by that user:

getent group wheel

Option A: AWS Marketplace console

• Open the SecureAnyCloud Rocky Linux listing on AWS Marketplace and choose View purchase options, then Subscribe. One subscription covers every version in the listing.
• Once the subscription is active, choose Launch your software.
• Choose One-click launch from AWS Marketplace (or Launch from EC2 Console for full control), then in Version choose Rocky Linux 8.10 - YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM (the UTC date and time the version was added) and your Region.
• Instance type: m5.large is recommended; any current x86_64 type works. The software charge is $0.04 per vCPU per hour.
• Key pair: choose your EC2 key pair. It is the only way in. RSA and ED25519 keys both work.
• Security group: allow inbound TCP 22 from your own IP address or network only.
• Storage: the root volume is 11 GiB gp3 by default. Choose a larger size if you need one; cloud-init grows the root partition and filesystem to fill it on first boot.
• Metadata: leave the defaults. The image already requires IMDSv2. Then choose Launch.

Option B: AWS CLI

Run this command on your own workstation. Replace the AMI ID with the one shown for your Region on the Marketplace launch page, and replace the key pair, security group and subnet with your own. The root device of this AMI is /dev/sda1:

aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id ami-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --instance-type m5.large \
  --key-name my-key-pair \
  --security-group-ids sg-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --subnet-id subnet-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --block-device-mappings 'DeviceName=/dev/sda1,Ebs={VolumeSize=20,VolumeType=gp3}' \
  --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=rocky-linux-8-10}]'

You do not need --metadata-options: the AMI already makes IMDSv2 required.

From your workstation, connect as rocky with the key pair you chose:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/my-key-pair.pem rocky@<public-ip>

There is no password to enter. If SSH asks for one, or says Too many authentication failures, see Troubleshooting below.

You can also connect without opening port 22 through AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, if the instance has an instance profile that allows Systems Manager. The agent is installed and running on this image.

cat /etc/rocky-release grep -E '^(NAME|VERSION|ID|VERSION_ID|PLATFORM_ID|PRETTY_NAME)=' /etc/os-release uname -srm

Expected output:

Rocky Linux release 8.10 (Green Obsidian) NAME="Rocky Linux" VERSION="8.10 (Green Obsidian)" ID="rocky" VERSION_ID="8.10" PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8" PRETTY_NAME="Rocky Linux 8.10 (Green Obsidian)" Linux 4.18.0-553.176.1.el8_10.x86_64 x86_64

Your kernel version may be newer if updates have installed since this image was built.

This version is named for, and built from, Rocky Linux 8.10. The listing also carries Rocky Linux 8 versions (Rocky Linux 8 Minimal and Rocky Linux 8 LVM) that are rebuilt from the current Rocky Linux 8 release. Choose this one when your build sheet, compliance baseline or vendor support matrix names 8.10 and you want the standard Rocky Linux package set.

The instance uses the standard Rocky Linux 8 repositories:

rpm -q rocky-release dnf -q repolist grep -E '^(SUPPORT_END|ROCKY_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION)=' /etc/os-release

Expected output:

rocky-release-8.10-1.14.el8.noarch repo id repo name appstream Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream baseos Rocky Linux 8 - BaseOS extras Rocky Linux 8 - Extras SUPPORT_END="2029-05-31" ROCKY_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="8.10"

How updates behave. Rocky Linux maintains only the newest point release of each major version, and for Rocky Linux 8 that is 8.10 for the rest of its life:

• sudo dnf upgrade and the automatic security updates (Step 10) install Rocky Linux 8 updates, and the instance stays on 8.10. There is no later Rocky Linux 8 point release for it to move to, so you do not need to hold the release (no releasever setting) to keep an instance on 8.10.
• The rocky-release package itself is updated from time to time (its release number above changes), but the version it reports stays 8.10.
• Security updates continue until Rocky Linux 8 reaches end of life on 31 May 2029 (the SUPPORT_END above). After that date the repositories receive no further fixes. Plan the move to Rocky Linux 9 or 10, which this listing also carries, well before then.

The evaluation the build ran after its reboot ships on the image:

ls -lh /usr/share/doc/sac/ python3 -c "import json; s=json.load(open('/usr/share/doc/sac/cis-l1-summary.json')); print('profile: ', s['profileLabel'], '(SCAP Security Guide', s['ssgVersion'] + ')'); print('scored rules: ', s['scored'], ' pass:', s['pass'], ' fail:', s['fail'], ' rate:', str(s['ratePct']) + '%'); print('waived: ', s['waived'], ' not applicable:', s['notapplicable']); print('evaluated at: ', s['evaluatedAt'])"

Expected output:

total 40M -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 37M Oct 21 13:58 cis-l1-arf.xml -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2.5M Oct 21 13:58 cis-l1-report.html -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1.2K Oct 21 13:58 cis-l1-summary.json -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2.0K Oct 21 13:58 cis-l1-tailoring.xml -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3.2K Oct 21 13:58 cis-l1-waivers.txt -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1.6K Oct 21 13:51 scap-security-guide-LICENSE.txt profile: CIS Level 1 Server (SCAP Security Guide 0.1.82) scored rules: 294 pass: 294 fail: 0 rate: 100.0% waived: 8 not applicable: 38 evaluated at: 2026-10-21T13:58:03Z

• cis-l1-report.html is the full OpenSCAP report, rule by rule. Copy it to your workstation and open it in a browser.
• cis-l1-arf.xml is the same evaluation in the machine-readable ARF format, for compliance tooling.
• cis-l1-tailoring.xml is the exact tailoring used, so you can re-run the same evaluation (Step 6).
• The pass rate is pass / (pass + fail + error + unknown). Rules that are not applicable to this machine, not selected, or waived are not counted.

To copy the report to your workstation, run this on the workstation:

scp -i ~/.ssh/my-key-pair.pem rocky@<public-ip>:/usr/share/doc/sac/cis-l1-report.html .

The eight waived rules

grep -v '^#' /usr/share/doc/sac/cis-l1-waivers.txt | cut -f1,2

Expected output:

partition_for_tmp [single-volume-partitions] grub2_password [serial-console-and-boot] grub2_uefi_password [serial-console-and-boot] ensure_root_password_configured [serial-console-and-boot] accounts_maximum_age_login_defs [key-only-account-aging] account_disable_post_pw_expiration [key-only-account-aging] sshd_limit_user_access [ssh-access-list] service_systemd-journal-upload_enabled [log-remote-destination]

The full reason for each is the third column of the same file. In short:

• Separate /tmp partition: this version boots from one EBS root volume. (The Rocky Linux 8 LVM version of this listing provides separate volumes for /tmp, /var, /var/log, /var/log/audit, /var/tmp and /home, and scores those rules.)
• Boot loader and root passwords: a GRUB or root password would have to be baked into the image, giving every instance the same secret. Root stays locked with no password. Set your own if you need serial console access (see Step 11).
• Password aging defaults: the accounts cloud-init creates are key-only. An aging limit would expire them and lock the SSH key out. Accounts that do have a password are still aged.
• SSH AllowUsers/AllowGroups: a list fixed at build time would refuse accounts you create later. Your security group restricts who can reach port 22.
• Remote journal upload: the benchmark switches on systemd-journal-upload, which sends the system journal to a remote log server, but the image cannot know your log server. Switched on with no destination, the service fails at every boot. systemd-journal-remote is installed and the upload service is left off; to use it, see "Send the journal to your own log server" below.

Every scored rule passes

python3 -c "import json; print(json.load(open('/usr/share/doc/sac/cis-l1-summary.json'))['failingRules'])"

Expected output:

[]

The list of failing rules is empty: every rule the profile scores on this image passes. Rules that do not apply to an EC2 instance (for example wireless interfaces) are reported as not applicable and are not counted.

Send the journal to your own log server

If you run a systemd-journal-remote collector, point the image at it and switch the upload service on (replace the address with your collector's):

echo 'URL=https://logs.example.internal:19532' | sudo tee -a /etc/systemd/journal-upload.conf
sudo systemctl enable --now systemd-journal-upload

You can repeat the evaluation at any time with the same content and tailoring. It takes about a minute:

sudo oscap xccdf eval \
  --tailoring-file /usr/share/doc/sac/cis-l1-tailoring.xml \
  --profile xccdf_co.sac_profile_cis-l1_ec2_single \
  --results /tmp/cis-check-results.xml --report /tmp/cis-check-report.html \
  /usr/share/xml/scap/ssg/content/ssg-rl8-ds.xml > /tmp/cis-check.log 2>&1 echo "oscap exit code: $? (0 = every rule passed, 2 = at least one rule did not pass)"
sudo python3 -c "import re,collections; c=collections.Counter(re.findall(r'<result>(\w+)</result>', open('/tmp/cis-check-results.xml').read())); s=sum(c[k] for k in ('pass','fail','error','unknown')); print(dict(sorted(c.items()))); print('pass rate: %.1f%%' % (100.0*c['pass']/s))"

Expected output (measured on a fresh instance launched from this image):

oscap exit code: 0 (0 = every rule passed, 2 = at least one rule did not pass) {'notapplicable': 38, 'notselected': 1369, 'pass': 294} pass rate: 100.0%

Your own report is at /tmp/cis-check-report.html. The content file is ssg-rl8-ds.xml, the Rocky Linux 8 data stream; the RHEL 8 data stream that the same package carries reports every rule as not applicable on Rocky Linux. As you install software and change settings, re-run this to see how your changes affect the result.

curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'IMDSv1 request without a token: HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-id
TOKEN=$(curl -s -X PUT -H 'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 60' http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token)
curl -s -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" -w '\n' http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/region

Expected output (your Region may differ):

IMDSv1 request without a token: HTTP 401 us-east-1

A request without a session token is refused with HTTP 401, and the same request with a token works. Scripts and SDKs on the instance must use IMDSv2; every current AWS SDK and the AWS CLI do this automatically.

sudo firewall-cmd --state sudo firewall-cmd --list-all sudo ss -tlnp systemctl is-enabled cockpit.socket cat /etc/systemd/system-preset/80-sac-cockpit.preset

Expected output:

running public (active) target: default icmp-block-inversion: no interfaces: eth0 sources: services: dhcpv6-client ssh ports: protocols: forward: no masquerade: no forward-ports: source-ports: icmp-blocks: rich rules: State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:PortProcess LISTEN 0 128 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* users:(("sshd",pid=962,fd=3)) LISTEN 0 128 [::]:22 [::]:* users:(("sshd",pid=962,fd=4)) disabled
# sac: inbound SSH only. Enable the Cockpit web console yourself (see the user guide). disable cockpit.socket

• Only sshd listens on a TCP port, port 22. The only other socket is chrony's local command port (UDP 323 on the loopback address), which is not reachable from the network.
• The public zone allows ssh and dhcpv6-client (replies to the instance's IPv6 DHCP client, which is how an instance in an IPv6-enabled subnet gets its address). The Rocky Linux default cockpit service is removed from the zone.
• The loopback interface sits in firewalld's trusted zone, with rules that drop traffic claiming a loopback source from anywhere else (a CIS requirement).
• The network interface is named eth0 on every instance type: the image boots with predictable interface names turned off (net.ifnames=0), as the Rocky Linux EC2 images do.

Opening a port for your own service takes two steps: allow it in the instance's security group, and allow it in firewalld. For example, for a web server on 443, run on the instance:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https sudo firewall-cmd --reload

If a port is open in the security group but not in firewalld (or the other way round), the traffic will not arrive.

Turning on the Cockpit web console. Cockpit (cockpit-ws, cockpit-system, cockpit-bridge) is installed as in a standard Rocky Linux system, but its socket is disabled, and the preset file shown above keeps it disabled if the system presets are applied again (for example by systemctl preset-all). If you want the console, run on the instance:

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=cockpit sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Then allow TCP 9090 from your own address in the security group and browse to https://<public-ip>:9090. Cockpit signs in with a local account's password, so give your user one first (sudo passwd rocky); SSH stays key-only. Cockpit uses a self-signed certificate until you install your own. Prefer an SSH tunnel (ssh -L 9090:localhost:9090 ...) to opening 9090 to the internet.

systemctl is-active chronyd amazon-ssm-agent chronyc -n sources

Expected output (the pool servers and timings vary):

active active MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample =============================================================================== ^- 99.28.14.242 1 6 377 18 +1015us[+1015us] +/- 13ms ^- 198.46.254.130 2 6 377 16 +11us[ +11us] +/- 15ms ^- 69.10.208.170 2 6 377 17 +3856ns[+3962ns] +/- 59ms ^- 38.80.8.230 2 6 377 17 +8341ns[+8446ns] +/- 20ms ^* 169.254.169.123 3 4 377 16 +51ns[ +158ns] +/- 471us

The ^* marks the source chrony is using: 169.254.169.123, the Amazon Time Sync Service. It is reachable from every instance without internet access, so time stays correct in a private subnet too. The public Rocky Linux pool servers are fallbacks.

The AWS Systems Manager agent is installed from Amazon's own package at its current release (3.3.5390.0 on this build). It is not in the Rocky Linux repositories, so dnf does not update it; Systems Manager can keep it current for you (the AWS-UpdateSSMAgent document, or the Auto update SSM Agent setting in Fleet Manager).

The image is fully patched at build time. Check what is pending now:

sudo dnf -q check-update --refresh echo "dnf check-update exit code: $? (0 = nothing to update, 100 = updates available)" grep -E '^(upgrade_type|apply_updates)' /etc/dnf/automatic.conf systemctl is-enabled dnf-automatic.timer uname -r

Expected output on an instance launched soon after the image was built (later launches list the updates released since, with exit code 100):

dnf check-update exit code: 0 (0 = nothing to update, 100 = updates available) upgrade_type = security apply_updates = yes enabled 4.18.0-553.176.1.el8_10.x86_64

dnf-automatic runs daily (06:00, with a random delay of up to an hour) and installs security updates automatically from the repositories described in Step 4. To update everything now, run:

sudo dnf -y upgrade

Reboot if a new kernel was installed:

sudo systemctl reboot

getenforce
sudo passwd -S root
sudo sshd -T | grep -E '^(permitrootlogin|passwordauthentication|pubkeyauthentication|maxauthtries|clientaliveinterval|banner) ' cat /etc/issue.net

Expected output:

Enforcing root LK 2026-06-26 0 99999 7 -1 (Password locked.) maxauthtries 4 clientaliveinterval 300 permitrootlogin no pubkeyauthentication yes passwordauthentication no banner /etc/issue.net Authorized users only. All activity may be monitored and reported.

• Enforcing means SELinux is on and enforcing the targeted policy. Keep it on; if your own software is denied, check sudo ausearch -m avc -ts recent rather than disabling SELinux.
• LK in the second field means the root account is locked.
• maxauthtries 4 and clientaliveinterval 300 come from the CIS profile: SSH allows four authentication attempts per connection and checks idle sessions every five minutes.
• The banner text is shown before login.

EC2 Serial Console and recovery. No account on this image has a password, so the serial console cannot log in until you set one. If you want serial console access, set a password for your own user on your running instance (the password is yours and is not on the image):

sudo passwd rocky

df -hT /
sudo grep -E 'cc_growpart.*(resized|NOCHANGE)' /var/log/cloud-init.log | tail -1 swapon --noheadings --show | wc -l sudo grep -h aide /etc/crontab

Expected output with the default 11 GiB root volume (on a larger volume, Size is larger and the cloud-init line says resized):

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/nvme0n1p5 xfs 10G 3.8G 6.3G 38% / 2026-10-21 14:26:46,747 - cc_growpart.py[DEBUG]: '/' NOCHANGE: no change necessary (/dev/nvme0n1, 5) 0 05 4 * * * root /usr/sbin/aide --check

• Disk layout. The root filesystem is XFS on partition 5 of the root volume; /boot (XFS) and /boot/efi are separate small partitions.
• Disk growth. cloud-init grows the root partition and filesystem to the volume size on first boot. To grow later, increase the EBS volume size in the console or with aws ec2 modify-volume, then run sudo growpart /dev/nvme0n1 5 && sudo xfs_growfs / (or reboot).
• Swap. The image has no swap. Add a swap file yourself if your workload needs one.
• AIDE. The file integrity database is built from the image's own files, and the CIS profile schedules aide --check daily at 04:05 from /etc/crontab.

The instance uses the standard Rocky Linux 8 repositories (BaseOS, AppStream and Extras):

sudo dnf -q list --available nginx

Expected output (the version changes over time):

Available Packages nginx.x86_64 1:1.14.1-9.module+el8.4.0+542+81547229 appstream

Rocky Linux 8 ships several versions of some software as application streams (for example sudo dnf module list nginx lists nginx 1.14 to 1.24); sudo dnf module enable nginx:1.24 before installing picks a newer stream. Install and start software in the usual way, for example sudo dnf -y install nginx then sudo systemctl enable --now nginx, and open its port in the security group and firewalld (Step 8). The AWS CLI is not on the image; install the current version from AWS (the AWS CLI install guide) if you need it.

To add another administrator, create the account, add it to the wheel group and give it an SSH key:

sudo useradd -m -G wheel alice
sudo install -d -m 700 -o alice -g alice /home/alice/.ssh echo "ssh-ed25519 AAAA... alice@laptop" | sudo tee /home/alice/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown alice:alice /home/alice/.ssh/authorized_keys && sudo chmod 600 /home/alice/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo restorecon -R /home/alice/.ssh

Because SSH is key-only, a new account needs its key in authorized_keys (and restorecon gives the file the SELinux label sshd expects). The new account has no password, so sudo cannot authenticate it until you give it one with sudo passwd alice. SSH stays key-only; the password is used by sudo. (Password-free sudo is granted only to rocky, created by cloud-init, and to ssm-user, which the Systems Manager agent creates the first time you open a Session Manager session.)