Arch Linux

new2arch

Member

Registered: 2008-02-25

Posts: 235

Grub now demands Root password?

Just want to confirm with you guys that the newest Grub demands the root password when booted into single mode?
Previously it didn't.

foutrelis

Developer

From: Athens, Greece

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 705

Website

Re: Grub now demands Root password?

I believe it has always been this way. The following line in /etc/inittab seems relevant:

su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p

Last edited by foutrelis (2009-08-03 20:28:15)

new2arch

Member

Registered: 2008-02-25

Posts: 235

Re: Grub now demands Root password?

I believe it has always been this way. The following line in /etc/inittab seems relevant:

su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p

Hm... perhaps I've been dreaming, but I seem to remember having used the "single" command during boot couple of times, and no password was requested...

Isn't that the reason why one is encouraged to password protect the grub boot, using 'grub> md5crypt' and add that hash into the menu.lst?

My old inittab hasn't changed compared to the one the recent upgrade replaced.

Last edited by new2arch (2009-08-04 15:03:30)

jinks

Member

Registered: 2009-07-20

Posts: 14

Re: Grub now demands Root password?

I believe it has always been this way. The following line in /etc/inittab seems relevant:

su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p

Hm... perhaps I've been dreaming, but I seem to remember having used the "single" command during boot couple of times, and no password was requested...

Isn't that the reason why one is encouraged to password protect the grub boot, using 'grub> md5crypt' and add that hash into the menu.lst?

I think what you mean is appending init=/bin/bash or something similar to the grub boot line. This would prevent any login security, initscripts, etc. and boot from the kernel right into bash.

And the only way to prevent that, is to password-protect grub itself.

new2arch

Member

Registered: 2008-02-25

Posts: 235

Re: Grub now demands Root password?

I think what you mean is appending init=/bin/bash or something similar to the grub boot line. This would prevent any login security, initscripts, etc. and boot from the kernel right into bash.

And the only way to prevent that, is to password-protect grub itself.

I don't think I meant that, I've never added init=/bin/bash to the grub boot line, only "single". I'm referring to the first part of this article:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=216700

Or here:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu … t-sec.html

Last edited by new2arch (2009-08-05 13:20:28)