Protect Grub2 with Password Centos7/rhel7

Protect Grub2 with Plain Password Method

1.)Login as a root user

su –

2.) Backup the existing grub.cfg so if anything goes wrong we can always restore it.

>>cp /boot/grub2/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.orig

To specify a superuser, add the following lines in the /etc/grub.d/01_users file, where john is the name of the user designated as the superuser, and johnspassword is the superuser's password:

cat <<EOF

set superusers="john"

password john johnspassword

EOF

On BIOS-based machines, issue the following command as root:

>>grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

On UEFI-based machines, issue the following command as root:

>> grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg

To Use Encrypted password

Create the encrypted password using

grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2

Enter Password:

Reenter Password:

PBKDF2 hash of your password is grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.19074739ED80F115963D984BDCB35AA671C24325755377C3E9B014D862DA6ACC77BC110EED41822800A87FD3700C037320E51E9326188D53247EC0722DDF15FC.C56EC0738911AD86CEA55546139FEBC366A393DF9785A8F44D3E51BF09DB980BAFEF85281CBBC56778D8B19DC94833EA8342F7D73E3A1AA30B205091F1015A85

Now we can change the entry in the file /etc/grub.d/01_users as follows

cat <<EOF

set superusers="john"

password_pbkdf2 john grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.19074739ED80F115963D984BDCB35AA671C24325755377C3E9B014D862DA6ACC77BC110EED41822800A87FD3700C037320E51E9326188D53247EC0722DDF15FC.C56EC0738911AD86CEA55546139FEBC366A393DF9785A8F44D3E51BF09DB980BAFEF85281CBBC56778D8B19DC94833EA8342F7D73E3A1AA30B205091F1015A85

EOF

Remove Grub loader and get windows 7 boot loader back (uninstalling Linux)

1.Put the Windows 7 installation/Upgrade disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer (set to boot from CD in BIOS).

2. Press a key when you are prompted.

3. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. Click the operating system that you want to repair (Windows 7 in this case), and then click Next.

6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

7. Once in the command prompt, type exactly Bootrec.exe /FixMbr and then press ENTER. You will see "operation completed successfully." (Doesnt even take a second. Dont be alarmed )

8. Reboot and set BIOS to boot from the HDD again.

GRUB will be overwritten in step 7 and Windows boot loader will once again take control of loading your OS(s).

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr

// The /FixMbr option writes a Windows 7 or Windows Vista-compatible MBR to the system partition. This option does not overwrite the existing partition table. Use this option when you must resolve MBR corruption issues, or when you have to remove non-standard code from the MBR.