Controlling Access to System Hardware

You can protect the physical system by requiring a password to gain access to the hardware settings. You can also protect the system by preventing a user from using the abort sequence to leave the windowing system.

How to Require a Password for Hardware Access

Before You Begin

You must be assigned the Device Security, Maintenance and Repair, or System Administrator rights profile.

1. Become an administrator with the required security attributes.

   For more information, see How to Obtain Administrative Rights.

2. In a terminal window, type the PROM security mode.

   # eeprom security-mode=command
   
   Changing PROM password:
   New password: <Type password>
   Retype new password: <Retype password>    

   Choose the value command or full. For more details, see the eeprom(1M) man page.

   If, when you type the preceding command, you are not prompted for a PROM password, the system already has a PROM password.

3. (Optional) To change the PROM password, type the following command:

   # eeprom security-password= Press Return
   Changing PROM password:
   New password: <Type password>
   Retype new password: <Retype password>

   The new PROM security mode and password are in effect immediately. However, they are most likely to be noticed at the next boot.

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   Caution - Do not forget the PROM password. The hardware is unusable without this password.

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How to Disable a System's Abort Sequence

1. Become an administrator with the required security attributes.

   For more information, see How to Obtain Administrative Rights.

2. Change the value of KEYBOARD_ABORT to disable.

   Comment out the enable line in the /etc/default/kbd file. Then, add a disable line:

   # cat /etc/default/kbd
   …
   # KEYBOARD_ABORT affects the default behavior of the keyboard abort
   # sequence, see kbd(1) for details.  The default value is "enable".
   # The optional value is "disable".  Any other value is ignored.
   …
   #KEYBOARD_ABORT=enable
   KEYBOARD_ABORT=disable

3. Update the keyboard defaults.

   # kbd -i