Password protect grub

By default with Ubuntu the user can use grub to login with root privileges WITHOUT a password, which I don't feel comfortable with. This is how I password protected grub to prevent changing the boot process:

> grub
grub> md5crypt

Password: YOUR_PASSWORD
Encrypted: abcdef

grub> quit


Now copy the encrypted string into the start of the grub file:

> sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst
password --md5 abcdef
lock

After saving change the permissions to prevent other uses viewing the file:
> sudo chmod 600 /boot/grub/menu.lst

Recover password

If you forget your login password it can be recovered through grub. At boot enter the grub menu and choose 'single'. This will get you a root command prompt. Now run 'passwd' to set a new password. Now anyone can do this if they get access to your machine so you should password protect grub. I will write how to do this later.

Email from the command line

echo "message" | mutt -s "subject" -x address@host.com