Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 15:05:54 -0600 From: Tillman Hodgson <tillman@seekingfire.com> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Protection from the dreaded "rm -fr /" Message-ID: <20041002210554.GS35869@seekingfire.com> In-Reply-To: <20041002204851.K24332@fw.reifenberger.com> References: <20041002081928.GA21439@gothmog.gr> <200410021123.59811.max@love2party.net> <20041002165155.GP35869@seekingfire.com> <20041002175517.GA2230@gothmog.gr> <20041002204851.K24332@fw.reifenberger.com>
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On Sat, Oct 02, 2004 at 09:16:08PM +0200, Michael Reifenberger wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Oct 2004, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> ...
> >>Exactly. Who would expect `rm -rf /` to actually succeed? It's not only
> >>dangerous, it doesn't work in a useful way ;-)
> >>
> >>If one is thinking about `rm -rf /`, `newfs` is probably the right
> >>answer.
>
> newfs only works if the root is not mounted because otherwise the device is
> locked. (Hmm is GEOM too anti foot shooting? But can't you reenable
> foot-shooting via sysctl?) whereas `rm -rf /` works allwsys
> :-)
It'll never work, though, that's the thing. At some point it'll rm
something it itself needs and error out. There isn't a way to use `rm
-rf /` that /doesn't/ result in foot-shooting.
This isn't a sub-tree like /etc or /sbin (which are rooted in /), this
is only to treat / itself specially.
-T
--
"If knowledge creates problems, ignorance will not solve them"
-- Isaac Asimov.
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