Booting SunOS 4.0 singlu user (was Re: NFS security)

[Arnold D. Robbins {EUCC}]

In article <14186 at comp.vuw.ac.nz> duncan at comp.vuw.ac.nz (Duncan McEwan) writes:
>....  I think SunOS 4.0 can be configured to require the
>superuser password before coming up in single user mode.
>
>My only information regarding this feature in SunOS 4.0 is a brief
>mention in the 4.0 release notes, so I may have mis-interpreted it.
>No doubt someone will correct me if I have.

This feature is straight-forward, and fairly elegant. The file /etc/ttytab
is in the format of the 4.3BSD /etc/ttys:

# name	getty				type		status	comments
#
console	"/usr/etc/getty std.9600"	sun		on secure

The 'secure' on the line for the console has the usual meaning of "root
can log in on this terminal", and is also overloaded to mean "OK, you can
come up with a single user root shell". If 'secure' is missing, or /etc/ttytab
is not there, then the system prompts for the root password when booting
single user.

This could profitably be incorporated into future BSD releases.
-- 
Arnold Robbins -- Emory University Computing Center
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