A slightly less open Ubuntu recovery mode

Ubuntu recovery mode is a basic boot configuration for repairing a broken system. In this mode it skips most configuration files and daemons in order to achieve a functioning root prompt. For the security-conscious administrator this itself is a problem.

There have been complaints about unchallenged root access in recovery mode. Ubuntu uses sudo for root access and the root account is disabled via a “*” password. If you forget the passwords of the admins (any user account in the admin group) then this makes it possible to easily reset it.

Originally, recovery mode went straight to a root prompt which wasn’t useful to non-technical types. With the addition of Friendly Recovery, a menu is displayed with a list of repair options. The menu is just a Whiptail selection dialog driven by the “/usr/share/recovery-mode/recovery-menu” script which queries other scripts in the “./options” subdirectory. The sub-scripts provide simple repair options like failsafeX, apt-get clean, and update-grub.

Read more at Stubborn Tech Problem Solving