On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 13:05 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote: > How can one setup a system to ask for the root password to get into > single user mode? Well, you can harden a box, somewhat, against meddlers by setting a BIOS admin password, so they can't change BIOS settings without it, and ensuring that the PC can only boot from your hard drive. Also, set a GRUB password, so they can't change boot up parameters without it. I tend to add another stanza to grub.conf for booting from a floppy, though with a "lock" parameter, so a password is required to do so. Unfortunately, our current version of GRUB doesn't let you boot from CD-ROMs, nor other devices (that I'm aware of). Of course, they can open the box and remove the hard drive to put in another box, reset the BIOS to remove a BIOS password, or add another drive, to get around restrictions of booting yours. But that's not the sort of thing someone could do to a PC in a public place without being noticed. It's quite effective at stopping friends from playing practical jokes on you. -- (This PC runs FC4, my others FC5 & FC6, in case that's important to the thread) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.