grub

The grub bootloader is particularly useful, especially when upgrading and testing new kernels. I recently found a way to modifiy the default boot config to make it useful when you wish to remotely upgrade a kernel and boot into it once only without being at the console to change the default back.

Even before the operating system is booted, GRUB enables access to file systems. Users without root permissions can access files in your Linux system to which they have no access once the system is booted. To block this kind of access or prevent users from booting certain operating systems, set a boot password.