30. Password Protect GRUB
Password protect your boot loader so that you get an additional level of security right at the booting time. Also you get a protection layer of protection at physical level. Protect your Server by locking GRUB at boot to avoid any unauthorized access.
First make backup of two files, so that if anything goes bad, you have the option to revert back. Create a backup of ‘/etc/grub2/grub.cfg‘ as ‘/etc/grub2/grub.cfg.old‘.
# cp /boot/grub2/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.old
Also, Create a backup of ‘/etc/grub.d/10_linux‘ as ‘/etc/grub.d/10_linux.old‘.
# cp /etc/grub.d/10_linux /etc/grub.d/10_linux.old
Now open ‘/etc/grub.d/10_linux‘ and add the below line at the end of the file.
cat <<EOF set superusers=”tecmint” Password tecmint avi@123 EOF
Notice in the above file, replace “tecmint” as username and “avi@123” as password with your username and password.
Now generate the new grub.cfg file by issuing following command.
# grub2-mkconfig --output=/boot/grub2/grub.cfg
After creating new grub.cfg file, reboot the machine and press ‘e‘ to edit. You will find that it requires you to enter ‘valid credentials‘ in order to edit boot menu.
After entering login credentials, you will able to edit grub boot menu.
Also you can generate encrypted password in place of plain password as shown in the above step. First generate an encrypted password as suggested below.
# grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2 [Enter Normal password twice]
Now open ‘/etc/grub.d/10_linux‘ file and add the below line at the end of the file.
cat <<EOF set superusers=”tecmint” Password_pbkdf2 tecmint grub.pbkdf2.sha512************************************************** EOF
Replace the password with the one generated on your system. Don’t forget to cross check the password.
Also note you need to generate grub.cfg in this case as well, as described above. Reboot and next time you press ‘e‘ to edit, you will be prompted for username and password.
We’ve tried to cover most of the necessary post-installation points of industry standard distributions RHEL 7 and CentOS 7. If you find that we’ve missed certain points or you need to extend this post with a new post-install things, you may share with us, we will include your point in this article by extending it.
I followed this guide. Its really helpful. As you said quite extensively about installing apache, databases and others.
Can you also provide a guide regarding how to upload a site in CentOS after doing all this?
You can use WordPress and add the blogs.create new website add the domain to that website apache.
I am wondering why httpd,php is installed after installing virtualbox. Initially it is installed, will it conflict
Resourceful tutorial for Linux enthusiast.
There is a mistake in the SSH section. The config file is NOT ‘ssh-config’. That is meant for the SSH client not the server. The SSH server settings are in ‘sshd-config’. As a noob, it took me a while to figure out why my changes had no effect on the server.
Otherwise, this has been a great resource for someone like me learning Linux for the first time. Thanks!
@Gary,
Thanks for notifying, yes it should sshd_config for configuring SSH Server. We’ve corrected in the article.
One of the commands didn’t work for me, the one related to opening up the httpd port through firewalld. I got a syntax error
I got a successful execution with the following command, because I did not choose to assign http a funky port, just the standard one (80)
If you want to use a custom port for httpd, use this command, which specifies the port/protocol:
SOURCE:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24729024/open-firewall-port-on-centos-7
Thank you for getting this information together, it is very helpful for people not familiar to minimal dekstop-less installations.
There’s a syntax error in the article, it should say:
(two dashes instead of one, before every argument)
@IvanZ,
Thanks, I have corrected the command in the article..