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Author Topic: Words can NOT EXPRESS!!!  (Read 695 times)

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Offline trashy

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Words can NOT EXPRESS!!!
« on: August 12, 2009, 05:21:13 PM »
I violated one of "my rules" while doing some stuff, and I made a HUGE mistake! >:(

A bit of background....

I am getting ready to go on an "extended trip" for my job.  What that means is I'll be away from my home network for a while, and was setting some stuff to "make my life easier" while I was away.

On my server, I run Linux, and I was in the process of building a "special" operating system that I planned to use while I was gone.  I spent two days downloading, compiling and installing several programs that I really wanted to make work.  Usually after doing extensive work, I'll save it, tar it up and put it in a separate place to "take care" of it.  This time I didn't move my work to a separate place, and I did the ultimate.

Just for anyone's information, if you enter the command AS ROOT rm -rdf somefile* it WILL remove the file and any directory named like it! :o

Needless to say, I am downloading some sources as I type this.  This is a fundamental thing that is taught early.  I thought that I "knew enough about what I was doing" to get careless on the keyboard, and now I am paying the price. :'(

I just wanted to post this as a part rant and part warning.
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Offline couttsj

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Re: Words can NOT EXPRESS!!!
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2009, 07:16:03 PM »
Been there, done that. Even though I haven't used them for a while, I do know from bitter experience that Unix commands are very powerful, but very unforgiving.

J.A. Coutts
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Offline DJanda

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Re: Words can NOT EXPRESS!!!
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2009, 08:41:01 PM »
Quote from: couttsj on August 12, 2009, 07:16:03 PM
Been there, done that.

Me too -- the classic mistake of typing a space instead of the "." resulting in the command "rm -r * bak" in an top level directory. Thank God for backup tapes  :-\ We were able to resume the project the next day -- after some interesting comments from the project manager, of course  ;)

That is why (especially in Linux/Unix) you should do everything possible using a "user" account. That way, when you absolutely must do something as ROOT, the transition to ROOT should make you aware of the inherent power, thus (hopefully) making you take extra precautions.
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