For all u Linux/Unix users :)

Years ago when I was just starting to learn Linux I was all over irc channels and forums trying to learn as much as I could. One day in irc someone was SUPPOSED to be helping me out but instead they got me to run a command that because I was logged in as the root user completely deleted the entire HD.

I thought I would share my naive experience with you so that you don’t make the same mistake when your simply looking for help.

rm -rf /* DONT EVER DO THAT!

For those of you that do not know what that command does do not simply try it because it will wipe your HD if you are logged in as the root user.

If your not logged in as the root user only the files your user account owns will get removed.

If anyone ever tells you to run that command tell them to GET LOST!



Also if your ever seeking linux/unix help from someone in irc or on a forum they can disguise the command.

You could be asking how to do something like view the .bash_history file for the root account and some malicious individual could give you a command like this.

ls -tla /tmp/root, rm -rf /* vi /root/.bash_history

This will do a dir list then delete everything on the drive then give an error when trying to view the .bash_history file.

So you could be led to think that your running a command to view the file but really the guy put the delete command in there.

If your new to nix OS's make sure you research commands that people try to get you to run on your machines

 

Believe it or not; at my first webhosting job we had a senior tech that actually did this.

His shell access was immediately removed and he found himself in training.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA GOOD ONE !!!!

Yep NEVER run that command

 

With some of the new distros it is possible to install them and run them almost forever with out ever opening a shell or using the command line.

So a few newer users could fall for that one.

But even if they do in SuSE 9.2 it dose not work even logged in as root.

is returned.

Actually I made a mistake and missed the space between "f" and "/" and it dose work.

 

VERY NICE

I use redhat and fedora not sure if the latest fedora has that protection if not it SHOULD

 

Actually I made a mistake and missed the space between "f" and "/" and it dose work.

 

ummmmmm

you ran the command ????????? Did it dealte the shit ???? or did you kill the process right away ?? or maybe you didnt do it as ROOT ???

So hmmmmm looks like you might have found something to add to the open source community

 

Yes I ran the command and it worked every thing was gone.
the GUI stayed up but would not shut down nor could I open any new programs.

The hard drive was acting up and I was about to repace it any way, all my data was already copied off of that hard drive, the new hard drive is now connected and I am installing SuSE as I type.

I had saw the command mentioned else where and wanted to test it any way so this was the perfect timing.

Warning unless you want to lose every thing

 

Heheheh good to know you needed to trash the HD anyway

 

The new hard drive now has over 300,000 back-up files and a tar ball of the same files 23.5G from my main work station.

I never trust hard drives as they do go bad, nor do I trust upgrades as some times they go wrong.

Just up-graded my main work station from SuSE 9.1 Pro to 9.2, it went as smoth as can be, but it was nerve racking, all my configuration was saved, apache, mysql, e-mail, bookmarks, ntp, etc. The computer booted up and almost everthing worked with my previous settings.

 

Good shit man!

Good idea backing everything up.