Grub password

Gortex · 08-21-2007, 10:26 PM

I am having problems setting up a password for grub.
I read the man grub and it pointed me to the info grub.
After reading that, it basicly tells me to place the password in a config file, but isnt that plain text ?
I am not forsure what exactly to do here, and dont wana reck my boot loader any advice would be cool.

unSpawn · 08-22-2007, 04:00 AM

it basicly tells me to place the password in a config file, but isnt that plain text ?
Yes, but /boot/grub/grub.conf should be readable and writable by root only.

As root execute 'grub'. Now type 'md5crypt'. Now enter your password. Everything after "Encrypted: " is your password. Edit your /boot/grub/grub.conf and add a line "password --md5 PASSWORDHERE" where PASSWORDHERE is the stuff you saved from the md5crypt output. Save, close.

archtoad6 · 08-26-2007, 09:43 AM

Or use:

Code:

$ grub-md5-crypt 
Password: Hello World! 
Retype password: Hello World! 
$1$fvOt6$i/2.xbvETTCX02VjPP49n0

The 32 characters it returns are the encrypted password. I show the example password in red, in reality nothing will show on the screen as you type.

The differences are: a) You must type your password 2ce -- much safer, & b) No "Encrypted: " preceding the encryption.

<rant>
The info system is antiquated & should deprecated in favor of almost anything else, especially good man pages. Probably the worst thing about it is the Byzantine structure & (usually) no decent index. Fortunately RMS is tacitly admitting this by allowing info pages to be turned into HTML. When you use the "entirely on one web page" version, you can search the whole manual at once.
</rant>

In any case, the GRUB manual is here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

and the instructions, such as they are, for grub-md5-crypt here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...dmd5_002dcrypt