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Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2015 13:51:15 +0100
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: fluxwatcher@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Check root password changes done via single user mode
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Cc: Daniel Peyrolon <tuchalia@gmail.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
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On Tue, 03 Mar 2015 10:20:25 +0100, Ricardo Mart=EDn wrote:
>=20
> Indeed, that would be a way of checking the password change, but I was
> more interested in whether such a change could be flagged as being
> carried out from single user mode.
> Or in another words whether the root's passwords has been reset
> accessing the machine during the boot process.

It could be possible to monitor root's actions in SUM. To
change the root passwort required the / partition being
mounted r/w. In this case, it's possible that the (memory
buffered) shell history is also written to the history file,
leaving an evidence. Of course it's no big deal to _remove_
such evidence. You could try to "hide" additional means of
logging in the (limited) SUM boot process, but I don't
think such a mechanism is already implemented by default...

The problem with SUM is that is is _by intention_ a very
limited environment, and still a very powerful environment.
That's why you can secure this mode with a password as well,
to "seal" the _real_ power of root. :-)


--=20
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...