F21 emergency.target when root pw isn't set

[Chris Murphy]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 12:17 PM, R P Herrold <herrold at owlriver.com> wrote:
>
> Chris had contacted me off list yesterday,

It was a gmail oops.


> the OS/X method I am familiar entails booting from alternative
> media (a different partition or from media on older hardware,
> and one assumes from USB on newer, and essentially having a
> guided loop mount to not just blank, but actually set a new
> hard passwd in the credentials database).

For 5 major releases (5 years), a 650MB Recovery HD volume is created
at install time and boots into a minimal OS X: There's a Terminal
program for doing password resets from, web browser, Disk Utility, and
software restore. No password is needed for this environment. And
single user mode boot is also possible without a password.


> Windows is trickier as the credential 'lives' in a specific
> hive segment in the registry (post Win 3.51 NT), and may
> either be blanked, or have a hash of a credential stored on a
> non-running client primary image, via a recovery instance
> (sometimes secondary, sometimes media, etc)

Looks like Windows has a really burdensome password reset. But startup
repair doesn't require any authentication to get into, and this
environment also includes access to a command line. So troubleshooting
and fixing boot problems is still possible without a password.


>
>
>> I'm not really grokking
>> the point of systemd making single/emergency target locked down like
>> this; physical access is assumed because in emergency mode there is no
>> network. And physical access has always meant full access unless the
>> volumes are encrypted. I'm a bit stumped how this is supposed to work
>> without really esoteric knowledge.
>
> all great questions / observations, but the systemd folks are
> not to be criticized.  It gets tiresome


I'm not aware that there's been a discussion. It's roughly the same
time frame that anaconda lifted the set root password requirement, and
systemd starting requiring one. So I just don't think the consequences
of that combination was considered by anyone. I'll bring it up on
desktop at .

-- 
Chris Murphy