Sponsored Content
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users How to prevent Accidents 'rm -rf *'? Post 302904218 by deepakwins on Tuesday 3rd of June 2014 12:15:29 AM
Old 06-03-2014
How to prevent Accidents 'rm -rf *'?

When invoking unix commands from other third party tools (IBM ETL), we run the rm / mv commands with the folder as argument been passed. Eg

Code:
rm -rf {folder}/*

when the parameter {folder} did not pass rightly or becomes blank, the command becomes dangerous to execute
Code:
rm -rf /*

How to prevent the disaster?

I seen some suggestions to add alias as alias
PHP Code:
rm='rm -i' 
But this wont work all the time, as we cannot make the command interactive when running from a tool.

Situation becomes worse, when the command is execute via super user.

Please throw some light.

Thanks,
Deepak
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Prevent bash from interpretation :

I am using bash shell; my requirement is to run a long command. Now I have split this long command into a number of shell variables. Some of these shell variables contain special character ':' At the end, when the intended long command is executed as a series of small shell variables the ':'... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: uday
7 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Prevent history entry

Is there anyway to prevent a command from being logged in the history file? I share a system with others (log in with same account) and I would like to prevent any passwords from being logged in the history file. Some of the commands that I run require username/password on the command line... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: here2learn
7 Replies

3. Programming

how to prevent deadlock on this...

I am using linux termios structure to configure serial port and read the port by read function. For some reason, if I read the whole buffer, almost every time the buffer does not contain the correct reply message sequence from a device sending reply to my linux PC. So I use... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: yimab
5 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Prevent output to window

hello, Any suggestion on how to prevent Standard output and Standard Error to window? (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: katrvu
3 Replies

5. Programming

How to prevent a class from inheretance?

:(Hi, There is a class in C++ called "CL". It should not participate in inheretance. If some body inherit it it should give errors.....:( (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: krishna_sicsr
0 Replies

6. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Parallel access - how to prevent

I have one shell script which is being accessed by many jobs at same time. I want to make the script such that , other job should wait for the script if script is being used by some other job. Is there any way to implement it in script level ? Gops (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Gopal_Engg
1 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to prevent queues from disabling themselves

I understand that on my HP-UX 11.31 system when print queues can no longer communicate with remote printers, the queue disables itself. How can I configure it to stop disabling itself, or alternatively, to re-enable itself when the remote printer comes back online? I have users in warehouses who... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: EatenByAGrue
6 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

how to prevent process from being killed

Hi,all.Well,I know someone has already asked this question before,however,It's too long before.So i post a new thread here. Here is the issue.I have a shell script that use awk to calculate something and the script takes about 15 mins,it will use 100% CPU,and the system automatically killed the... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: homeboy
2 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to prevent command from deleted

Hi, I've been searching around for solution, hope that some gurus here can help. I'm using some commands in my shell script and I'd like to protect these command to be moved to another directory. For instance, cp currently in /bin/cp. If I move it to /bin/cpxxx, my script will not be able to... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: gklntn
3 Replies

10. Emergency UNIX and Linux Support

How to prevent emails as spam?

If an email is sent from our application server(running on AIX) to an id that is outside of the organization like gmail etc, and if gmail should not treat the mail as spam, what has to be done from unix level? (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: ggayathri
7 Replies
rmf(1mh)																  rmf(1mh)

Name
       rmf - remove folder

Syntax
       rmf [ +folder ] [ -help ] [ -[no]interactive ]

Description
       The  command  removes all of the messages within the current folder, and then removes the folder itself.  If there are any files within the
       folder which are not part of MH, they are not removed, and an error message is displayed.

       You can specify a folder other than the current folder by using the +folder argument.  If you do not specify a folder, and cannot find  the
       current folder, asks you whether you want to delete instead.

       If the current folder is removed, it makes current.

       Note that the command irreversibly deletes messages that do not have other links, so use it with caution.

       If  the folder being removed is a sub-folder, the parent folder becomes the new current folder, and tells you that this has happened.  This
       provides an easy mechanism for selecting a set of messages, operating on the list, then removing the list  and  returning  to  the  current
       folder from which the list was extracted.

       Using to delete a read-only folder deletes the private sequence and current message information from the file, without affecting the folder
       itself.	If you have sub-folders within a folder, you must delete all the sub-folders before you can delete the folder itself.

Options
       -help	 Prints a list of the valid options to this command.

       -interactive
       -nointeractive
		 Asks for confirmation before deleting a folder.  By default, deletes a folder and its messages without asking	for  confirmation.
		 If  you  specify  the	-interactive option, asks if you are sure before deleting the folder.  You are advised to use this option,
		 since when deletes a folder its contents are lost irretrievably.

Examples
       This example shows how asks for confirmation when the -interactive option is used:
       % rmf -interactive +test
       Remove folder "test"? y

Profile Components
       Path:   To determine the user's Mail directory

Files
       The user profile.

See Also
       rmm(1mh)

																	  rmf(1mh)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:54 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy