Comments on: Linux Disable Wireless Networking ( Wi-Fi )

By: pramod

pramod — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:35:44 +0000

friends, its working, i have tried it, nice forum. nagpur india

By: Vivek Gite

Vivek Gite — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:36:07 +0000

@Go Appa: I’ve update the faq.

@Humberto, good suggestion or you can write protect wireless directory so that no one can write it including root ;) [hint: chattr command]

@Rob, Yes, firewall will make it pretty hard, if installed on each laptop. iptables has support option to enable or disable traffic based upon user ID. So user foo can access wifi but not anyone else. Personally, I recommend avoiding the purchase of equipment (wireless add-on modules) that will be used in sensitive spaces and including bluetooth.

HTH.

By: Go Appa

Go Appa — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:11:24 +0000

What about Bluetooth ? It does serves a different purpose and possesses a much shorter range, but it still presents serious security risks.

By: Rana

Rana — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:40:55 +0000

@Leslie: there is a link at the bottom of post about disabling USB, RTFM.

By: Leslie Satenstein

Leslie Satenstein — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:31:51 +0000

If the user really wants to circumvent all your blockages, I believe that he will be able to.

He will just use a USB wireless adapter, and voila.

But if he knows doing so will result in dismissal, you would have more success.

By: Humberto Massa

Humberto Massa — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:24:15 +0000

One more suggestion: blacklist ( /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist ) all wifi hardware. This is better than erasing the drivers because next time you update the kernel (and you _do_ update the kernel from time to time, don’t you? :-D) the drivers will be back.

By: Rob Haag

Rob Haag — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:17:03 +0000

Vivek,
1st of all: I love the posts…I look forward to them hitting my in-box!

I like your answer to the problem here, it is useful to know how to disable through the OS and I like the module solution as it would really do the trick…But if I had charge of classified/sensitive devices that had wireless then I would feel compelled to remove the wireless cards from the laptops, as you pointed out, and then one should click the ‘see also’ link above as to deal w/ the possibility of someone trying a USB wireless device.

What about a firewall solution though? iptables would probably be willing to block everything on a particular interface…or even better, only allow the one interface ( e.g. eth0) to do anything at all.

Just asking because I’m moving in a direction where I will have to deal w/ these issues too…

Thanks for all the insight

By: Vivek Gite

Vivek Gite — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:05:16 +0000

Peko,

Yes, it was a typo from mv command.

Appreciate your feedback.

By: Peko

Peko — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:29:04 +0000

Hi, Vivek,

Good topic.

Would you consider this as a typo? (a copy-paste typo ;-) )
# rm /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 __/root/backup__

(you don’t want to have backup here IMNSHO)

Peko