How to password protect the single user mode in Linux

One of the very compromising situation arising with a Linux box with a slack physical security easy access to anyone to the linux box – is one were a malicious user boots into an un protected single user mode and changes your root password. This can be prevented by making your linux machine to ask for the root password even when the system is made to boot into single user mode. The below given tip lets you achieve this goal.

How to implement this Tip?

1. From your Linux machine access a terminal window and open /etc/inittab file for edit.

2. In this file add the below given line just before the id:X:initdefault: entry

su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin

3. Save the /etc/ininttab file.

4. Now from next time onwards you will be prompted to provide the root password before accessing the single user mode.