Linux and networking

You might remember when you installed Linux that the installation process prompted you for a list of partitions and the sizes of each in which your filesystems would be placed. When allocating disk space for the partitions, the first sector, or data unit, for each partition is always reserved for programmable code used in booting. The very first sector of the hard disk is reserved for the same purpose and is called the master boot record (MBR). When booting from a hard disk, the PC system BIOS loads and executes the boot loader code in the MBR. The MBR then needs to know which partitions on the disk have boot loader code specific to their operating systems in their boot sectors and then attempts to boot one of them. Fedora Linux is supplied with the GRUB boot loader which is fairly sophisticated and therefore cannot entirely fit in the 512 bytes of the MBR. The GRUB MBR boot loader merely searches for a special boot partition and loads a second stage boot loader. This then reads...

It is easy to lock a machine down, disable the floppy, and cdrom in the bios. There is a simple registry change that will keep the USB storage drivers from starting when the system boots. Keeps people from walking up to a PC and copying data off with a USB key, but allows you to keep your scanner, keyboard, and mouse working. As always - back your system up before messing around in the registry. Just open regedit and browse to this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor Notice the value 'Start' Switch this value to 4, and USB storage devices are disabled. Switch this value to 3, and USB storage devices are enabled. Hence you have Prevented users from connecting a USB device