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From: Arno Griffioen via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Maintenance mode on AIX
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2023 21:34:26 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Y8hX0jHBNrPVje4j@ancienthardware.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230118163840.GF2964@mcvoy.com>

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:38:40AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Someone once told me that if they had physical access to a Unix box, they
> would get root.  That has been true forever and it's even more true today,
> pull the root disk, mount it on Linux, drop your ssh keys in there or add
> a no password root or setuid a shell, whatever, if you can put your hands
> on it, you can get in.

Until a few years ago, I would definitely agree. Done that regularly
in the past. (and worked on lots of network gear too...)

However..

Nowadays with a little effort you can make a bootable Linux machine that 
uses either a passphrase or some external key/dongle/fingerprint/etc.
to unlock an encrypted root fs and additional filesystems.

If you don't have those credentials, then it's going to be pretty tricky to 
access as you simply can't even access any of the encrypted filesystems to 
start with.

Yes, you could probably get the initrd booted with a root shell and
then wipe the machine/disk to then do what you want, but the original
install is getting pretty hard to jump into with boot tricks these days.

								Bye, Arno.

  parent reply	other threads:[~2023-01-18 20:36 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 103+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-01-18  9:43 [TUHS] AIX moved into maintainance mode arnold
2023-01-18 14:46 ` [TUHS] " Phil Budne
2023-01-18 14:55   ` Ralph Corderoy
2023-01-19 14:42     ` Liam Proven
2023-01-19 15:04       ` Warner Losh
2023-01-19 15:15         ` Liam Proven
2023-01-18 15:13 ` arnold
2023-01-18 15:14   ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-18 16:10     ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-18 16:19       ` Stuff Received
2023-01-18 16:19       ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-18 16:27         ` [TUHS] Maintenance mode on AIX Ron Natalie
2023-01-18 16:38           ` [TUHS] " Larry McVoy
2023-01-18 16:59             ` Clem Cole
2023-01-18 17:08               ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-18 17:21                 ` Will Senn
2023-01-18 19:50                   ` David Barto
2023-01-19 14:25                   ` Liam Proven
2023-01-18 20:34             ` Arno Griffioen via TUHS [this message]
2023-01-18 20:50               ` Brad Spencer
2023-01-18 16:36         ` [TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode Will Senn
2023-01-18 16:42           ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-18 16:57             ` Will Senn
2023-01-18 17:16               ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-18 17:25                 ` Will Senn
2023-01-18 21:09                   ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-18 21:18                     ` Kevin Bowling
2023-01-19  1:13                     ` Joseph Holsten
2023-01-19 15:04                     ` Liam Proven
2023-01-18 19:25             ` Dave Horsfall
2023-01-19 15:02             ` Liam Proven
2023-01-19 15:12               ` arnold
2023-01-19 17:46                 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-01-19 18:24               ` Doug McIntyre
2023-01-19 19:44                 ` Chet Ramey
2023-01-20 13:09                 ` Liam Proven
2023-01-20 14:37                   ` Harald Arnesen
2023-01-18 16:48         ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-19  0:54         ` Adam Thornton
2023-01-19  1:09           ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-20 18:38             ` Theodore Ts'o
2023-01-20 18:57               ` Dan Cross
2023-01-20 19:48                 ` John Cowan
2023-01-20 20:04                   ` Dan Cross
2023-01-20 19:08               ` Kevin Bowling
2023-01-19  1:17           ` Marc Donner
2023-01-19  1:26             ` Joseph Holsten
2023-01-20 15:53               ` Marc Donner
2023-01-19 14:45         ` Liam Proven
2023-01-19 15:05           ` Dan Cross
2023-01-19 16:59             ` Bakul Shah
2023-01-19 19:33               ` [TUHS] The death of general purpose computers, was - " Will Senn
2023-01-19 20:09                 ` [TUHS] " segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-19 20:59                   ` Rich Morin
2023-01-19 21:11                     ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-20 13:30                   ` Liam Proven
2023-01-20 15:51                     ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-20 15:56                       ` Rich Morin
2023-01-20 16:24                         ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-20 18:21                           ` G. Branden Robinson
2023-01-20 18:33                             ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-18 18:58       ` [TUHS] " Steve Nickolas
2023-01-19  8:02     ` arnold
2023-01-19 15:04       ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-19 15:20         ` Warner Losh
2023-01-19 15:23           ` Larry McVoy
2023-01-19 16:40           ` Dan Cross
2023-01-19 16:58             ` Warner Losh
2023-01-19 23:16               ` Theodore Ts'o
2023-01-20  0:37                 ` Warner Losh
2023-01-20  1:22                   ` Steve Nickolas
2023-01-19 17:02             ` Steve Nickolas
2023-01-19 17:19               ` Adam Thornton
2023-01-19 18:22                 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-19 19:07                   ` Kevin Bowling
2023-01-19 21:08                     ` Joseph Holsten
2023-01-19 20:01                 ` [TUHS] The era of general purpose computing (Re: " Bakul Shah
2023-01-19 22:23                   ` [TUHS] " Luther Johnson
2023-01-20  1:10                     ` John Cowan
2023-01-20  1:15                       ` Luther Johnson
2023-01-21 18:12                         ` arnold
2023-01-21 18:43                           ` Luther Johnson
2023-01-19 22:29                   ` Rich Salz
2023-01-19 22:39                     ` Luther Johnson
2023-01-19 22:41                       ` Luther Johnson
2023-01-19 22:40                     ` Jon Steinhart
2023-01-19 23:24                     ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-19 23:44                       ` Rich Salz
2023-01-19 23:51                         ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-01-20  0:20                           ` [TUHS] owner maintenance (Re: " Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2023-01-20  0:36                             ` [TUHS] " Larry McVoy
2023-01-20  0:47                         ` [TUHS] " Yeechang Lee
2023-01-20  0:55                           ` George Michaelson
2023-01-20  1:05                             ` Rich Salz
2023-01-20  1:10                               ` George Michaelson
2023-01-20  2:27                     ` Dan Cross
2023-01-18 21:20 ` [TUHS] " Theodore Ts'o
2023-01-18 21:27   ` Kevin Bowling
2023-01-19  2:17   ` Jim Carpenter
2023-01-19 21:15 ` Will Senn
2023-01-19 21:34   ` Drew Diver
     [not found] <zpdIicuX7AbN-y6hYho0eLOnHgzRs4iHa1UD6bxUyiTZhqZkg3Ha8TKWV ASxWkDZitFw0JIopRVh7BRC2PzLFrF_Gjsb2yCi-uxJ3Yr3AtE=@protonmail.com>
2023-01-18 20:04 ` [TUHS] Re: Maintenance mode on AIX Joseph J. Mankoski ***PSI***
2023-01-19  3:56   ` steve jenkin

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