Disabling Control-Alt-Delete on Linux Servers

A colleague rebooted a server unintentionally by having the keyboard plugged into the wrong machine (or, more correctly, typing on a keyboard not connected to the box he was looking at)

After the users swore at him a little, he rang for advice -- luckily, in these days of event driven machines, on a recent Linux distribution (RHEL 5 / Ubuntu 8.04) disabling the C-A-D on critical machines is easy.

First, open /etc/event.d/control-alt-delete.

Now, change the line:


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


To:


+++ exec /bin/echo "Control-Alt-Disable has been disabled"


Save the file and restart the machine, the next time you press Control-Alt-Delete, you'll get a nice message saying things were disabled, rather than a bunch of angry users.