Lynis

Security and system auditing tool to harden Linux systems (and more)

Lynis is an auditing tool for Unix/Linux. It performs a security scan and determines the hardening state of the machine. Any detected security issues will be provided in the form of a suggestion or warning. Beside security related information it will also scan for general system information, installed packages and possible configuration errors.

This software aims in assisting automated auditing, hardening, software patch management, vulnerability and malware scanning of Unix/Linux based systems. It can be run without prior installation, so inclusion on read only storage is possible (USB stick, cd/dvd).

Lynis assists auditors in performing Basel II, GLBA, HIPAA, PCI DSS and SOx (Sarbanes-Oxley) compliance audits.

Intended audience:
Security specialists, penetration testers, system auditors, system/network managers.

Examples of audit tests:
- Available authentication methods
- Expired SSL certificates
- Outdated software
- User accounts without password
- Incorrect file permissions
- Configuration errors
- Firewall auditing

Current state:
Stable releases are available, development is active.



Background information:
Lynis is an audit script written in the common shell scripting language (sh). Therefore it runs on most systems without any adjustments. Packages are created by several maintainers, for easier installation. Still, if one would like to use the latest version, simply download the tarball, extract it to a temporary directory and run the tool.

- Compatible operating system (see 'Supported operating systems')
- Default shell

Tested on:
- Arch Linux
- CentOS
- Debian
- Fedora Core
- FreeBSD
- Gentoo
- Knoppix
- Linux Mint
- Mac OS X
- Mandriva
- OpenBSD
- OpenSolaris
- OpenSuSE
- Oracle Linux
- PcBSD
- PCLinuxOS
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
- Red Hat derivatives
- Slackware
- Solaris 10
- Ubuntu

Did it work on your operating system? Let me know!

SHA1 hashes:
1.5.0 (SHA1): 082c1ff1cac36af4548d5626d7dc4f0d263f8d11
1.4.9 (SHA1): 1861ae3828fb14601230559a5abbeb925662b409
1.4.8 (SHA1): 58c1c1916072fbeadc945f32f6b2a6ec7c900fb8
1.4.7 (SHA1): 2c38d0aef90dbe64839478f1f9fdfaec7346f40b
1.4.6 (SHA1): 7525887282accb95da7c4257050c7d1913782c38
1.4.5 (SHA1): c2586439b5d80652c86d44df87e3eb49a06dd31c
1.4.4 (SHA1): 54e68b60a305c13f5a6eda14626e6c80e1ea3b50
1.4.3 (SHA1): 7e73a94c0573e703e68f47963ed37e6747347f96

- Lynis documentation

Quick links