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I live in a country where home robberies are very common. I have a ubuntu server running at home and want to protect my machine from theft. I thought it would be neat if I had a USB key that I kept in a safe place that would have to be inserted into the PC during bootup or Linux would not boot.

So if someone stole the PC when they plugged it in and tried to boot it would fail without the USB key inserted.

The other idea I had was for the ubuntu machine to query a remote server for a key file to boot. If the PC got stolen I could delete this "key file" off of the remote server to disable the stolen PC booting up.

I am not sure how to implement either of these or whether it is even possible.

Does anybody have a solution for me?

Myles Macaulay
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    You could encrypt all partitions. – A.B. Mar 20 '15 at 16:50
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    @Myles see this post [Is there a way to do full disk encryption after the install?](http://askubuntu.com/questions/96870/is-there-a-way-to-do-full-disk-encryption-after-the-install) – Mudit Kapil Mar 20 '15 at 16:58
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    You could install the boot files on the USB key and remove them from the hard drive. This would render the system unbootable without the key but in no way would it protect your data from an experienced hacker. Disk encryption as suggested by @MuditKapil is the better choice. All things are possible. – Elder Geek Mar 23 '15 at 14:19

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