Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 10:37:04 -0500 (CDT) From: Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us> To: Greg Black <gjb@gbch.net> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Protection from the dreaded "rm -fr /" Message-ID: <20041005103123.C46325@duey.wolves.k12.mo.us> In-Reply-To: <nospam-1096714635.84106@felix.gbch.net> References: <20041002081928.GA21439@gothmog.gr> <200410021123.59811.max@love2party.net> <20041002083336.GA10355@k7.mavetju> <20041002101842.GA23272@gothmog.gr> <nospam-1096714635.84106@felix.gbch.net>
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On Sat, 2 Oct 2004, Greg Black wrote: > As for protecting against "rm -rf / foo" as a typo for "rm -rf > /foo", I don't mind if we offer protection against that; but I see > no reason at all to "protect" root from "rm -rf /". It's fair to > say that somebody who types that means it, and it's fair to go as > far as we can in satisfying it. I think you just nailed it on the head right here... if you say "rm -rf /" you probably mean it, but if you say "rm -rf / foo" you probably oopsed (pretty good bet, since rm / makes asking to rm foo redundant). How about checking if there is more than one argument, and if one of those arguments is "/", fail. If there is only one argument, even if it is "/", assume the user knows what he is doing and proceed normally. -- Chris Dillon - cdillon(at)wolves.k12.mo.us FreeBSD: The fastest, most open, and most stable OS on the planet - Available for IA32, IA64, AMD64, PC98, Alpha, and UltraSPARC architectures - PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, and S/390 under development - http://www.freebsd.org Q: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. A: Why is putting a reply at the top of the message frowned upon?
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