USB and CD drive disabling in linux

Ajith@NeST · 02-25-2009, 05:57 AM

Hi all,

My organization nowadays have switched to RHEL4 from WindowsXP for desktops for some applications. But i would like to know the best option for CDROM and USB device disabling in these machines either as scripts or commands).Please help me

serafean · 02-25-2009, 08:36 AM

Hi, the easiest is to remove the users you don't want to have access from the relevant groups (usually usb,plugdev,cdrom,cdrw...). Another option is manually removing devices from /dev : rm /dev/sr0 (to remove cdrom using the new pata drivers). last and most easy in my opinion is blacklisting relevant modules, preventing drivers from being loaded : edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add the modules you want blocked there. (for USB it's usbcore, for cdroms using PATA stack sr_mod).

Hope I helped

unSpawn · 02-25-2009, 03:50 PM

I don't know if RHEL4 is compatible but after generic measures like disabling options through the BIOS, covering phy ports and what serafean mentioned, you could look at PolicyKit?

Ajith@NeST · 02-25-2009, 11:16 PM

Thank you all for your replies.I think your suggestions are best solutions of my problem

seimour · 03-04-2009, 10:21 PM

and editing those workstations udev rules?