Resetting Linux User Password
- Thread starter Rhys
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Theres not really any reason for it to be harder, once you have physical access to a box (required to reboot/recover etc), it might as well be rooted. The way to counteract this is encryption. Sure you can make it harder, using things like bios passwords and disabling certain boot modes, it only slows people down.
Having physical access you could simply remove and clone the hdd, so physical security is as completely important as other security.
Having physical access you could simply remove and clone the hdd, so physical security is as completely important as other security.
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I suppose you are right. thankfully it was easy as Ive just started using Linux Mint and forgot my password. Off to set a BIOS password...
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You can set a password for grub so a user cannot easily enter single user/recovery mode.
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Furthermore you can disable the grub menu, making it much more difficult to pass the single flag to the kernel before it boots.
Not all distros have the failsafe option at boot. Ubuntu does but most do not.
Not all distros have the failsafe option at boot. Ubuntu does but most do not.
Just to add to this... it's commonly accepted that if you have physical access to a box - irrespective of its OS - then all bets are off with regards security. The datacentre where I work has multiple levels of physical security in place to prevent us users from having physical access to boxes.
Can a BIOS password not be reset just by taking out the CMOS battery though?
The only way I can think of really having security is encryption on your actual files. Maybe a secure external drive.
But otherwise BIOS passwords, GRUB etc are just very time consuming ways for the user, but quick ways for the attacker.
Yer bios password is simple to reset, and as you said encryption is really the only solution.
Not massively more secure, if you got physical access to the box then you can just change the boot options to boot from usb/cd/network whatever and totally bypass the bootloader... As mentioned above if you got physical access then all bets are off.