topic Re: security in Operating System - HP-UX

security

P.V.Ramesh — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:03:36 GMT

Hi

I would like to protect system using password when the machine is booting.

Example: -

You can protect a SUN unix machine during boot prompt level. Also you can protect a PC during intial boot it self.
Similarly i want to protect HP-Server's too.

I reason behind is a person who have access to the the machine and able to boot the machine in single user mode, he can knock of root password and do what ever he/she wants. To avoid this situation, is there any way to over come this problem.

Re: security

harry d brown jr — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:06:30 GMT

If you can't PHYSICALLY secure your computer, then your computer is NOT SECURE!

What would prevent the person from removing the root disk drive and put it into another server, then mount that volume, modify the password file, then put the drive back into said server?? Thus bypassing your root password???

PHYSICAL security is MORE important than PASSWORD security!!!

live free or die
harry

Re: security

Shannon Petry — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:14:35 GMT

Well Harry, the thing is with Sun Servers/Workstations the password is in the boot PROM, not on a disk. Lots of PC's have this too.

There is no way to secure a HP UNIX system in the same fashion, so you must physically secure the system.

Regards,
Shannon

Re: security

Sajid_1 — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:15:27 GMT

I would agree with Harry. But to answer your question:
If you convert the system to trusted, then you can change the boot_authentication to ask for a password even in single user mode.

Re: security

Sajid_1 — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:16:29 GMT

This was a good discussion about the same issue:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/0,,0x6c118f960573d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

Re: security

Dirk Wiedemann — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:17:36 GMT

Hello

Harry is of course right, but perhabs this is a first step:
In sam you can convert your server to a trusted system. If this happens, you can in the task
--> auditing and security
--> System Security Policies
--> General User Account Policies
activate the button "require Login Upon Boot to single-user state".
Now you have to login with a valid (super-)user and password in the single-user state, too.

Dirk

Re: security

Nick Wickens — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 15:37:31 GMT

I have not checked that this would work under single user mode (depends if profile is run which I can't recall) at the console but I have setup the root profile to ask for a name at login. Then there is a request for a password (hidden text) and the name and the password are then checked against an encrypted password that was previously setup by that authorised user. If the name or the password are invalid an email is immediatly sent out to our Exchange server and the same is true if the the script is aborted for any reason. All of the actions for this are logged.

The script in the profile does not restrict access for root (not a good idea) but merely adds an extra validation and alert of missue and is merely to report on attempted local violation. Of course once in as root then the logs could be changed but it would be hard to stop the email getting out to the exchange server after the event (of course if some one knew about this before hand they could remove network connections etc but this again comes down to physical security of your computer.

Or as a second suggestion why not get a secure web console (small box from HP that lets you connect as console via a browser) and remove the physical console from the computer (lock it in a cupboard) - That way your culprit either needs to know the web console password or have access to a spare console.