Console Access -- how does this work?

Question

My dedicated provider did the following:

wget S03HvTechAccess > /dev/null 2>&1
mv S03HvTechAccess /etc/rc3.d/ > /dev/null 2>&1
chmod 755 /etc/rc3.d/S03HvTechAccess > /dev/null 2>&1

and it shows:

/usr/bin/openvt -c 8 /bin/bash

What is openvt? It mentions you can login without a password. How does that work in terms of how do you connect to it?

Mircea Vutcovici · Answer 1 · 2013-02-14T15:01:53.147

0

openvt starts a command on a new virtual console. The command will use the STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR from the new virtual console.

edited Feb 14 '13 at 15:01

answered Feb 13 '13 at 22:08

Mircea Vutcovici

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A virtual console isn't a pty, is it? – Hauke Laging Feb 13 '13 at 22:09
Yes, Linux virtual console has is mapped to a pty device. It is the one that you can see on the physical server by pressing ALT+F1... or CTRL+ALT+F1... when in X. – Mircea Vutcovici Feb 13 '13 at 22:32
Have a look at /dev/pts. There are no mapped ptys for /dev/vcs[1-6]. There are technical differences. Thus AFAIK vcs are not called ptys. – Hauke Laging Feb 13 '13 at 22:39

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 13 '13 at 22:22

This command starts a root shell on the physical console of the server. There can be multiple virtual console sessions on the physical console - this uses virtual console number 8 (that's the "-c 8"). Because this is just a shell, rather than a login process, if someone has physical access to the console they get root access without needing a password.

Console Access -- how does this work?

2 Answers2