Password Security

[Bill Moran]

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 23:08:18 +0100
VeeJay <maanjee at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/23/06, Bill Moran <wmoran at collaborativefusion.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 10:45:19 +0100
> > VeeJay <maanjee at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 11/23/06, Olivier Nicole <on at cs.ait.ac.th> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > And how can one into the System by booting from a CD if it still
> > > > > requires the Password even in Single User mode?
> > > >
> > > > Booting from CD, floppy or hard disk is slected at BIOS level.
> > > >
> > > > Booting in single or multi user mode is at Operating system level.
> > > >
> > > > Booting is in the following order:
> > > >
> > > > 1) BIOS select what medium to boot from
> > > >
> > > > 2) the operating system boot from the selected medium
> > > >
> > > > So when it comes to the Single user password, itis already at stage 2)
> > > > it has passed the stage 1 (booting from hard disk ofr CD) without
> > > > password.
> > > >
> > > > Olivier
> > > >
> > >
> > > So, it means, that I should take the following steps
> > >
> > > 1. Password on BIOS
> > > 2. Change the order of booting i.e. When system is installed and working
> > > once, then I just the change the Booting FIRST from HardDisk.
> > > 3. Put the password on Single User mode.
> > >
> > > So, what more? Do you people think that I have got somehow security
> > barrier
> > > for unauthorized access?
> >
> > Physically _LOCK_ the server up.  Anyone who can get physical access to
> > the
> > unit can remove the drive and access it from another machine, bypassing
> > all
> > this stuff.
> >
> > Another option is to encrypt the hard drives, but this will require you
> > (or
> > someone else) to enter the password for the encrypted drives every time
> > the
> > system boots up, so it's generally a maintenance nightmare.
> >
> 
> 
> Well, I am not an expert on FreeBSD. And thats why I don't know that how it
> works that
> 
> If 4 Disks of same size for example 146GB each and they are configured with
> RAID 10, and Root, SWAP, /usr, /var File systems have been created on them.
> And if one takes one or two harddisks and how come he would be able to read
> the data when data is splited on 4 disks?

Your logic escapes me.  If someone were to physically break in to the machine
to steal your data, why would they only take some of the drives?