Comments on: Ubuntu root access.

By: earobinson

earobinson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:08:39 +0000

gianni, The convention in ubuntu is not to have a root password but to instead use sudo

By: gianni

gianni — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:57:31 +0000

stupid

you just have to set a root password, and you will be asked to put a password, after the boot actually, to login in the recovery console.

By: The Linux Index » Edward A Robinson: SUMming Up The Stats

The Linux Index » Edward A Robinson: SUMming Up The Stats — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:30:05 +0000

[...] of mine. On of my posts that continues to baffle me in how much activity it gets is my post about ubuntu root access. This post resulted in a friendly argument between me and a friend during class. At the time it was [...]

By: SUMming Up The Stats « earobinson

SUMming Up The Stats « earobinson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:09:28 +0000

By: A Discussion on Grub Security : Ubuntu Tutorials : Breezy - Dapper - Edgy - Feisty

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:59:07 +0000

[...] but more of a discussion or educational topic on grub. It was inspired by the original post here and continued discussion in the comments. I thought I would outline some suggestions on securing [...]

By: w4tch0

w4tch0 — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:51:16 +0000

Exactly what Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. said. Oh, and btw. there is an exact guide on ubuntuguide.org which shows how to do exactly this properly (including password encryption):
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_disable_all_interactive_editing_control_for_GRUB_menu

Have a nice day

By: earobinson

earobinson — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:33:56 +0000

Boyd Thanks for pointing that out I was just proving the concept but thats good to know.

By: infodroid

infodroid — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:51:03 +0000

yeah, the automagic section is created automatically by a script based on the information in the section before it (read the comments to see where that section is). so you shouldn’t ever modify the automagic section, just the template. once you modify the template, you run as root “update-grub”. that will then recreate your automagic section.

By: Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:34:09 +0000

You really shouldn’t modify the DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST. All you changes will be lost next time you install a kernel, or any other package that invokes update-grub in it’s postinst/prerm hook.

Instead, READ THE DOCUMENTATION. It’s in your grub.conf/menu.lst above the list of kernels. I believe you want to turn on the “lockalternative” and possibly “lockold” options. After you turn them on, you can run upgrade-grub as root to regenerate the list with your new preferences, and those preferences will persist across kernel upgrades. If you do need more or different boot stanza than are generated by update-grub, you should FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS on at around line 53 of your grub.conf and “Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST”.

By: Christer Edwards

Christer Edwards — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:30:17 +0000

@Ewan – most other distros *don’t* require a root password on runlevel 1. I teach RHEL5 and OEL including FC3-6 and none of those require a root password when booting into runlevel 1. The *only* distro that I’ve found that does require it is SLES.

/me heads off to blog about this topic…