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Date:      Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:48:09 -0700
From:      Danny Howard <dannyman@toldme.com>
To:        Glen Smith <gesmith@spcrepair.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Suggestions for post rm -rf /etc/*
Message-ID:  <4263F2D9.60608@toldme.com>
In-Reply-To: <20050417075241.GA3880@spcrepair.com>
References:  <20050417075241.GA3880@spcrepair.com>

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Glen Smith wrote:

>Anyone have a suggestion for fixing  a machine three states away after
>you rm -rf * dir/* inside of /etc or am I just screwed. I even had zsh
>ask me if that's what I really want to do. ::sob:: 
>  
>
Glen,

I'm glad this worked out for you.

I thought I might chime in that this is an excellent example of the idea 
that if something is broken on Unix "try rebooting" can often be a 
destructive solution.

I too once thought I had typed rm -rf /tmp/* late at night, then 
realised it was /etc/*!!  Copied the scripts over from another machine.  
This is a useful story to have for the occasional Interview Question, 
"tell me about a time when you messed up, and how you went about 
recovering from it."  The best answer is one of these situations where, 
by not panicking, you turn a lethal problem into an interesting triumph. :)

Cheers,
-danny

-- 
http://dannyman.toldme.com/



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