Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Preventing users to boot VS2000 to single user
Message-ID: <386@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 2 Nov 88 08:42:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: auspex.386
References: <354@eurtrx.UUCP> <670030@hpclscu.HP.COM> <8340@nlm-mcs.arpa>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 25

>Of course, after I did this on some of our systems I noticed some
>undocumented stuff that led me to believe that there was a way to tell it
>to boot a different init.

In SunOS 4.0 it's even documented in BOOT(8S):

     boot-flags  The boot program passes all  boot-flags  to  the
                 kernel  or  standalone  program.  They are typi-
                 cally  arguments to that  program  or,  as  with
                 those listed below, arguments to progams that it
                 invokes.

		...

                 -i initname
                      Pass the -i initname to the kernel to  tell
                      it  to  run  initname  as the first program
                      rather than the default /single/init.

Of course, you can also boot a different kernel, which lets you do even
more than run a different "init", unless you've protected the machine's
root file system so they can't install the new kernel (or have somehow
kept them from rebooting the machine or, at least, from typing a "b"
command with arguments - which would, I think, prevent either of those
from working).