/boot or grub on USB! A bodgers two factor authentication!

Roland0

Roland0

Roland0

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Hi Peeps

I have always enjoyed my having my computer start-up quickly and easily (don't we all?!) but I also appreciate some level of privacy.

What I was looking to do was to setup my computer with an auto-login (so no password), but using a USB device as authentication. I was inspired by disk encryption with RSA key auth. In this case as the machine is a desktop so full (or part) disk encryption isn't really necessary, nor is any other more sophisticated protection needed, its simply needs to stop a few (not very computer-literate) folk from being able to switch the machine on and get into my user account (and Facebook rape me, for eg.) and for me not to have to type cumbersome passwords! So I thought, why not just put the /boot partition on a USB drive? Or at very least grub? This would mean i could have an auto-login and no password, and when I am not there nobody* could use my computer!

I seem to be having a bit of trouble with it though, i thought i could just run > grub-install and slect it to boot from the right place ie (hd1,1) or w/e.
Then all that would need to be done would be to remove the MBR or just the menu.lst on the HDD

Has anybody tried (or similar) this themselves? If anyone has a better idea or more experiance with grub it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers








*unless they could use a linux boot cd etc which they won't!
 
I'm not too sure on the grub booting, sure it shouldn't be too complicated though :)

This may interest you though as a slightly 'neater' solution, YubiKey.

And neat Linux integration guide with PAM: Click
 
FireBar that looks ust the ticket! I'm setting it up now, the only problem is when (not IF) i lose my USB stick (hmm maybe i should dd image it!)

tnt I'm looking into that yubi key, it looks good but for a slightly different purpose. and keep up the good work with your security blog, the port knocking tutorial was great.

Edit: looks like its actually tied into the USB serial number, hmm I'd be screwed if I lost my USB stick!
 
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Yer I think Firebars method looks much more suitable :) Just be careful with your USB! :p

Although the FAQ says:
Q: What if I lose or break my USB key ? Will I be able to log back in ?
A: Sure. Your usual password will be asked.

Stoned_SpaZZZ said:
tnt I'm looking into that yubi key, it looks good but for a slightly different purpose. and keep up the good work with your security blog, the port knocking tutorial was great.
Click to expand...

Thanks :) I'm writing an extended version of that tutorial for a magazine, might post it up here when it's done.
 
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