Re: boot loader

[Tom <tom@lemuria.org>]

On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 01:55:19PM +0200, Russell Coker wrote:
> > Physical access to the hardware always means you have lost (an
> 
> Ability to disassemble the machine always means you have lost.  Ability to 
> access the keyboard, mouse, and (non-bootable) floppy drive should not cause 
> a problem.
> 
> Think of terminals in Internet Cafe's and University computer labs.

But how does a boot-password offer any protection in these settings?


> > encrypted filesystem being the exception).
> 
> An encrypted file system is not a magic bullet.  How does the machine with 
> the encrypted file system get it's unlock password?

The same way that it gets the boot password. :)


> Hosting centers that I am familiar with do not have enough security cameras, 
> and the locks on cabinet doors are easily pickable.  Someone who has 
> authorised access to one company's equipment (authorisation being arranged by 
> unencrypted and unsigned email over a public network) can do whatever they 
> like to other machines.

No security-aware hosting center will let run people around
unsupervised unless every customer has a steel-cage of his own.


> But that's beside the point.  The fact that some people choose to not use a 
> particular security method does not mean that I will choose to not support 
> it.

I agree. The point was that lilo.conf may or may not be especially
sensitive, depending on the setup. It may be, but similiar points may
be made for many other files (/etc/ppp/*.secrets, snmp config files,
quite a lot of things actually).

See my other posting - where the "line of authority" runs is a specific
question. On some systems, root=god will still (largely) be true with
SELinux installed, on other systems even two of the three admins may
not be authorized to access lilo.conf.

Difficult to generalize.

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