ansible-os-hardening

Configuration Management

An Ansible collection providing battle‑tested security hardening playbooks for Linux OSes, MySQL, Nginx and OpenSSH.

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Jinja Latest 10.6.0 · 8d ago Security brief →

Features

Hardens Linux distributions (CentOS, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Amazon Linux, Arch Linux, Fedora, SUSE Tumbleweed)
Secures MySQL/MariaDB installations according to DevSec baselines
Applies Nginx configuration hardening for versions 1.0.16+
Configures OpenSSH with recommended security settings (OpenSSH 5.3+)

Recent releases

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10.6.0 Mixed 8d

Auth RBAC

APT cache, ptrace restriction, OS support

Open

10.5.2 Bug fix 2mo

Fixed bug where apt cache was unnecessarily updated when installing libpam-passwdqc.

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Changelog

10.5.2 (2026-03-28)

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Fixed bugs:

do not update apt cache when installing libpam-passwdqc #939 [os_hardening] (eikesauer)

Merged pull requests:

chore(deps): update hugo19941994/delete-draft-releases action to v3 #940 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): pin dependencies #938 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update actions/checkout digest to de0fac2 #932 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (renovate[bot])

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10.5.1 Bug fix 2mo

Fixed flaky SSH failures on Ubuntu 24.04 and newer by disabling sshd socket activation.

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Changelog

10.5.1 (2026-03-20)

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Fixed bugs:

fix flaky failures on Ubuntu 24.04 and newer by disabling sshd socket activation first #931 [ssh_hardening] (kuglimon)

Closed issues:

SSH issue after running devsec.hardening.ssh_hardening role #854

Merged pull requests:

chore(deps): update juliangruber/read-file-action digest to 271ff31 #937 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update ansible/ansible-lint digest to 8ba9595 #934 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update artis3n/ansible_galaxy_collection action to v3 #933 (renovate[bot])
Improve VM based testing of SSH hardening #878 [ssh_hardening] (schurzi)

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10.5.0 Breaking risk 4mo

⚠ Upgrade required

Disable systemd audit logging by default – can be re‑enabled via configuration if needed
Consistently access Ansible facts using the ansible_facts.* namespace

Notable features

Replaced deprecated community.general.yaml callback plugin with an alternative

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Changelog

10.5.0 (2026-01-22)

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Implemented enhancements:

fix: replace deprecated community.general.yaml callback plugin #918 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (Normo)
Consistently access facts via the ansible_facts.* namespace #917 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (Normo)
disable systemd audit logging #902 [os_hardening] (z-bsod)

Fixed bugs:

/etc/sysctl.conf is no longer honored in Debian 13 #905

Merged pull requests:

chore(deps): update dependency jmespath to v1.1.0 #930 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update actions/setup-python digest to a309ff8 #929 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update ansible/ansible-lint action to v26 #928 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update artis3n/ansible_galaxy_collection digest to 415a92b - autoclosed #927 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update ansible/ansible-lint digest to a2bc8b8 #924 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update actions/setup-python digest to 83679a8 #920 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update actions/checkout action to v6 #919 [mysql_hardening] [os_hardening] [ssh_hardening] [nginx_hardening] (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update dependency molecule to v25.12.0 #914 (renovate[bot])
chore(deps): update ansible/ansible-lint digest to 40f24c2 #913 (renovate[bot])
Update test environments to current Ansible version #909 [mysql_hardening] (schurzi)
chore(deps): update ansible/ansible-lint digest to d7cd7cf #903 (renovate[bot])