From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 18 17:48:15 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9929D16A4CE for ; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:48:15 +0000 (GMT) Received: from shiva.nextrials.com (shiva.nextrials.com [64.81.74.145]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5BC2643D31 for ; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:48:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dannyman@toldme.com) Received: from [192.168.1.102] (mito.sr.nextrials.com [192.168.1.102]) by shiva.nextrials.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F7453C288A; Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:48:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4263F2D9.60608@toldme.com> Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:48:09 -0700 From: Danny Howard User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050328) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Glen Smith References: <20050417075241.GA3880@spcrepair.com> In-Reply-To: <20050417075241.GA3880@spcrepair.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-questions Subject: Re: Suggestions for post rm -rf /etc/* X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:48:15 -0000 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/