Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcosdumay | Hacker News Reader

One does not even need to enable password protection of Grub. Linux will ask for the root password before granting access to recovery mode. That stopped working at the early 2000s. The author must use a pretty stupid distro to not notice it by 2013.

Anyway, want to gain access to the computer? Get a screwdriver.

View on HN

Linux is a kernel. It runs the PID 1 process with root permissions. It doesn't ask for anything. The PID 1 process might, though. So it depends on userland. Then, you can parametrize the kernel with the "init=..." boot option and specify which PID 1 process you'd want. Indeed, the easiest way to get root access is to set that kernel parameter from boot loader - if it allows you to. Which about every default boot loader does. Just set it to a shell and be aware that userland might be a bit picky because you didn't set up a proper session yet.

Ubuntu does not require a root password, because there isn't one. The default setup is to always require sudo to access root.

> Ubuntu does not require a root password, because there isn't one.

That's true, but creating a root password in Ubuntu is child's play:

$ sudo passwd

(enter user password for sudo access to root privilege level)

(enter new password for root)

(re-enter new password for root)

Done.

> The default setup is to always require sudo to access root.

Yes, but this is a cosmetic distinction, not a basic one. Setting up a root password is always a few keystrokes away.

My point? Ubuntu isn't really different from other distros in this respect, it only appears to be.

If you have access to grub, you can edit the kernel command line and add init=/bin/sh. That will drop you in the initramfs, and you can mount the system's filesystems (assuming they're not encrypted of course).

You could just do like pmorici said and add `init=/bin/sh` instead of booting into recovery mode.

Sure, physical access > root access; that is undeniable :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com