From: Keith Rohrer (rohrer@fncrd6.fnal.gov)
Date: 08/21/92


From: rohrer@fncrd6.fnal.gov (Keith Rohrer)
Subject: Re: Linus security/Non root access
Date: 21 Aug 1992 14:54:34 GMT

In article <qwdpbp0y@cck.coventry.ac.uk> csg203@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Bluebeard) writes:
[much deleted]
>
>But that wouldn't stop someone with linux/minix boot and root file system
>disks, booting from floppy and then mounting the hard disk.
>
>The protected BIOS is the only real answer unless the linux partition was
>encoded in some way that only the 'official' kernel could read.
You could always hack your copy of the kernel's filesystem routines to do some-
thing like always use the negative of one of the essential paramters in the
filesystem, though changing over would be a nuisance.

But the best I've seen is something like my 5-5-91 AMI BIOS, which lets you
define the drive boot order a-c or c-a. Set passwording on changing setup,
set c to boot first, and as long as c is bootable a won't be checked to boot
off of. Unless they scribble on your hard drive's boot sector, it will always
boot to Linux...

>--
>***********************************************************************
>* FLESH: Charlie Freckleton * JANET: csg203@uk.ac.cov.cck *
>* ALIAS: Bluebeard * or : stliaise@uk.ac.cov.cck *
>***********************************************************************

        Keith
(rohrer@fncrd0.fnal.gov)

-- 
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