grubs password protect/os lock?

[Aging Technogeek]

Salvakia,

I just did some checking and found that Startup Manager only installs a password to protect the Grub from being modified through the edit function available when booting (press "e" when boot menu is on screen). It does not stop anyone from selecting an OS and booting it. To prevent unauthorized access you must password protect each OS individually.

You said Startup Manager returned "Invalid argument in terminal". If you are running it from terminal, take a look at this thread http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 18#p159803 . You should be able to run Startup Manager from the mintMenu.

[emorrp1]

I've set a password in bios, I get asked for it every boot before grub, even if I'm not loading the bios config screen. I guess it depends on your bios whether you can do the same.

[emorrp1]

I don't know, the one that came with my laptop! I think it may be an intel one, but I don't look at it that often.

[Fred]

Just food for thought. Ok... let's say you have a BIOS password set, a Grub password set, and a log-in password you have to enter. That's three passwords you have to deal with every time you boot. Now, you aren't laboring under the mis-impression that any one or more of these passwords is enhancing your laptop securiety, are you?

There is no such thing as a laptop being secure from a would-be intruder that has physical access, except with good quality cryptography. If I wanted to get at your data on your laptop and had physical access to your machine I wouldn't bother with your password protection anyway.

Fred

[emorrp1]

Yeah, I don't use it for security reasons: For some reason my laptop won't shutdown it'll only restart, so having a bios password stops it auto-booting again. Also all my data is on my external hard-drive, so a boot password would be pointless, there's nothing of value on my laptop's harddrive.