Use Passwords in Extlinux

If you want to prevent other people from logging into your computer, you can add passwords to Extlinux.

Set up the Extlinux menu as explained here Select which Operating System to Start using Extlinux

Edit extlinux.conf to be like this

UI vesamenu.c32
MENU TITLE Tiny Core Bootloader
PROMT 0
MENU MASTER PASSWD MasterPassword

LABEL tinycore
MENU PASSWD TinyCorePassword
KERNEL /boot/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet waitusb=5:UUID="long-number" tce=UUID="long-number"

LABEL windows
MENU PASSWD WindowsPassword
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0 1

TIMEOUT 50 must be removed. If you leave it in, the operating system will automatically load after the timeout period.

Replace MasterPassword, TinyCorePassword and WindowsPassword, with passwords of your choice.

You can use it like this if you want. You can start each operating system with its own password, or the master password.

To increase security, passwords may be replaced with encrypted sha1 passwords.

To encrypt passwords, the perl_Digest_SHA1.tcz extension needs to be installed. perl5.tcz is a dependency, and will also be installed.

After installing these, create encrypted passwords.

Open the terminal and type as follows

tc@box:~$ sha1pass MasterPassword
$4$TzKORUd8$4FiWkwSwJgBqmpB8fLiXLsrEXig$
tc@box:~$ sha1pass TinyCorePassword
$4$usOwVEs+$CnsMEZNMQdEXjOBeP9zL0ULCks4$
tc@box:~$ sha1pass WindowsPassword
$4$aIRnvQ41$pRcyV4AgftDm4EP5SNJ59hR/T9U$
tc@box:~$

Replace MasterPassword, TinyCorePassword and WindowsPassword, with passwords of your choice.

Copy the encrypted passwords created, to extlinux.conf, like this

UI vesamenu.c32
MENU TITLE Tiny Core Bootloader
PROMT 0
MENU MASTER PASSWD $4$TzKORUd8$4FiWkwSwJgBqmpB8fLiXLsrEXig$

LABEL tinycore
MENU PASSWD $4$usOwVEs+$CnsMEZNMQdEXjOBeP9zL0ULCks4$
KERNEL /boot/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet waitusb=5:UUID="long-number" tce=UUID="long-number"

LABEL windows
MENU PASSWD $4$aIRnvQ41$pRcyV4AgftDm4EP5SNJ59hR/T9U$
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0 1