[Novalug] Ubuntu recovery mode without password?

[James Ewing Cottrell 3rd]

The rationale is that anyone can do the following:

[1] Boot a Live CD or use the Rescue Mode
[2] Mount your system. It is now Data, not in Control.
[3a] Edit the password/shadow/whatever files.
[3b] Copy there own password/shadow/whatever files.
[3c] Chroot to the mounted partition and run /bin/passwd.

The moral is: If you have Physical Access, you Own the Machine.

JIM

D Rider wrote:
> While floundering with my naive knowledge (read: less than minimal) of
> Linux and Ubuntu I managed to screw up su access (sudo).  So
> thankfully I had the recovery option on my grub menu (Ubuntu 6.10).
>
> To my surprise it booted straight to a root prompt without my
> intervention with supplying a password.  It also gave me access to all
> files.  I'm not thrilled with that; what's the logic?
>
> http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/sudo mentions that I could have "set
> a root password in your installation".  Huh?  I don't remember that
> happening.  How do I do this?  And should I?  Pros/cons.
>
> Thanks.
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