[CentOS] way to disable keyboard and mouse ports

Wed Jan 4 00:29:11 UTC 2006
Bryan J. Smith <thebs413 at earthlink.net>

Jerry Geis <geisj at pagestation.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to disable the keyboard and mouse ports?

Remember, in UNIX, hardware is _useless_ if it is not bound
to a device used by a service.

So remove all relevant entries from /etc/inittab.
The mingetty tty entries, Xdm, the keyboard combination
traps, etc...
Don't start gpm, kudzu, etc... as services either, just to be
sure.

That will prevent any use of a keyboard/mouse once Linux
boots.

You can even remove any prompt from the bootloader.
You can also pass a parameter to set the console to a
physically non-existant COM device, or some other dummy port.

> I have a machine in a public area running an application
> that no-one needs to touch.
> However, someone could come up and plug a keyboard in
> it and mouse and be logged in as that user (not root).
> Is there a way to disable the mouse and keyboard so
> only remote ssh connections will control the PC if
> changes need to be made.

Again, hardware is _useless_ if it's not bound to a device
which is used by a service.  No local ttys, no local access
-- other than the console, which can be set to dummy  ;->

> This would also include any usb device which is fine
> and the PS2 keyboard and mouse.

Again, hadware is useless if it's not bound to a device which
is used by a service.

There are also games you can play with /dev and udev too.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance                      b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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