Prevent accidental reboots in Linux Servers

CTRL+ATL+DELETE will be the most commonly used shortcut key when we work on windows . Watch out that you never use this key (CTRL+ATL+DELETE) on linux server. The default Linux installation treats CTRL+ATL+DELETE command to immediately reboot the Linux system without any warning signals.

To avoid this to happen we need to edit  the inittab file /etc/inittab

The inittab file /etc/inittab  describes which processes are started at bootup and during normal operation also it tells  how the INIT process should set up the system in a certain run-level.

Open the file /etc/inittab in editor mode and search for the string

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

comment this line to prevent accidental reboots.

#ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

To make the inittab changes effective immediately with out reeboting Linux execute the command

kill -HUP 1

This will restart the Linux master process (init) immediately to re-read modified inittab settings.