Root password security

[O. Sinclair]

Colin Pinkney wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 Jan 2008, O. Sinclair wrote:
>> [snip] ...I generally do not like
>> the idea of my computer being open to access by anyone who gets their
>> hands on it. So I figured that if I booted into "rescue" (I hope we mean
>> the same) mode and set a password I would be asked for that next time.
> 
> If someone has physical access to your PC any security like this is pointless 
> as they could boot from a CD or USB stick, bypassing GRUB altogether and then 
> have full access to your hard drive. Or they could pull the hard drive out of 
> the PC and connect it to another PC as a secondary drive and access it all. 
> About the only way to stop any of this completely is to encrypt your hard 
> drive.
> 
> Anyway, the howto for what you want is here:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=7353
> 
that was a bit over the top for me. I logged in to rescue mode and typed 
"passwd", set a password. Now when I choose Rescue login I get a query 
"type password or press CTRL+D to continue". If I type no password it 
continues to "normal" boot.

I know there are ways around everything but I like this better than no 
password at all.

Sinclair