Howto Disable CTRL-ALT-DEL in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Server

Any user that has physical access to the keyboard can simply use the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination to reboot the server without having to log on. Sure, someone could simply unplug the power source, but you should still prevent the use of this key combination on a production server. This forces an attacker to take more drastic measures to reboot the server, and will prevent accidental reboots at the same time.



If you want to disable CTFL-ALT-DEL from shutting down your server use the following procedure.

To disable the reboot action taken by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination, comment out the following line in the file /etc/event.d/control-alt-delete.

sudo vi /etc/event.d/control-alt-delete

Change the following line

exec /sbin/shutdown -r now “Control-Alt-Delete pressed”
to

#exec /sbin/shutdown -r now “Control-Alt-Delete pressed”
Save and exit the file

Categories: Ubuntu