From: Jean Buchet ([email protected])
Date: Mon Oct 30 2000 - 21:43:59 CET
I did it once too :
while logged in as root, I type rm -r ./* without checking I was in the right directory (damned multiple screen sessions). In fact I was in /bin, and yeppah! "roulez jeunesse!"
'Same player, shoot again'
*grin*
Bye
---------------------------------------
From: Michele Andreoli <[email protected]>
Subject: How to trash own root
Date: 27/10/2000 16:54:35
---------------------------------------
Ok, it is happened again: I removed the best part of my Debian sustem, with a gigantic "rm -r /".
This is the script-fragment that caused the disaster:
===========================
.....
floppy=./floppy
Fsck.ext2 /dev/fd0H1722
mount /dev/fd0H1722 $floppy
......
rm -r $FLOPPY/*
===========================
You see the tremendous (and pedagocical) mistake: in the last row
I wrote $FLOPPY, but was intended "$floppy". Now, the FLOPPY variable was blank, so the shell interpreted in this way:
mount -r /* :-((((
Obviously, I used the "root" user there. So, with gaiety, the system started to remove every directory in the top of the ierarchy, in alphabetical order:
/a, /bin/, /boot, /cdrom, /dev, /etc, /home ....
When I interrupted with control-C, the only living was /root, /usr, /var and some other!
Luckyly, my important data was in /root, mounted from
an additional hard-disk, so the muLinux sources are intacts, but
I loss all muLinux website, that was in /home/mulinux.
Using the debugfs utility and the Ext2fs-Undeletion-MiniHowto,
I'm restoring some important file that was in /etc, with
my customization (e.g. Muttrc, etc).
I'm very sad, now: I'm back to the Stone Age. I have to reconfig Apache, enstablish correct return address in Sendmail, Netscape, XWindow, Mutt and so on. A week, full-time.
Take care of your filesystems!
Michele
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