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Recipe 7.11. Disabling or Limiting Access to Ctrl-Alt-Delete

7.11.1 Problem

We all know that Ctrl-Alt-Delete reboots the machine. But is this what you want? From a security standpoint, a machine is vulnerable when booting; and anyone with access to the keyboard can force a reboot. Therefore, you want to disable Ctrl-Alt-Delete for rebooting the machine, or you want to limit it to some users.

7.11.2 Solution

To disable it completely, comment out this line in /etc/inittab:

# ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -r now

To enable it for a specific set of users, add the -a switch:

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now

Then add your list of allowed users to /etc/shutdown.allow.

7.11.3 Discussion

You may need to create the /etc/shutdown.allow file, if it does not already exist.

7.11.4 See Also

  • shutdown(8)

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