Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:55:18 +0100 (BST) From: Jan Grant <jan.grant@bristol.ac.uk> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: rm(1) bug, possibly serious Message-ID: <20070925175244.C21973@tribble.ilrt.bris.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <200709251512.l8PFCoPe006574@lurza.secnetix.de> References: <200709251512.l8PFCoPe006574@lurza.secnetix.de>
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On Tue, 25 Sep 2007, Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Note that the command "rm -rf ../" was entered twice.
> The first time I got an error message (and exit code 1),
> the second time it apparently succeeded.
Check the man page for rm:
-f Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirma-
tion, regardless of the file's permissions. If the file does
not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify the
exit status to reflect an error.
That's what's happening the second time through. The first time, your
current directory is getting removed (so ../ won't refer to a real
directory the second time around). The bug is really in rm(1)'s initial
diagnostic message.
--
jan grant, ISYS, University of Bristol. http://www.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44 (0)117 3317661 http://ioctl.org/jan/
We thought time travel was impossible. But that was now and this is then.
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