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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users How to prevent Accidents 'rm -rf *'? Post 302904231 by cero on Tuesday 3rd of June 2014 04:08:51 AM
Old 06-03-2014
That's why I explained how I interpreted the original post, but you're right, I was not clear enough.
I assumed that the third party tool issues rm -rf /* if the user of that tool does not provide any arguments. ONLY this case is catched. The user of that tool may not have any knowledge that he is working on an UNIX system at all because he only sees that tools frontend and may not know what effect is caused by not giving any arguments.
For all other cases I'll quote you:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Cragun
UNIX utilities are there to help you get a job done. If you use them correctly, they can do wonderful things for you. If you tell them to do stupid things, you'll get what you asked for.
A user who issues the commands you mentioned in the last reply most likely knows what he is doing - that would not be an accidental use of the rm command.

Edit again: thanks for pointing out the issues in your last paragraph.
In my tests (using GNU bash, version 4.1.5(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)) the script compains correctly when there are files in the root directory that contain space or tab characters in their names.
I'm not sure if the race condition can be entirely avoided (given my assumtions about the problem are correct).
The issue with whitespaces in the operand list is caused by my lack of quoting. The last line should read /bin/rm "$@".

Last edited by cero; 06-03-2014 at 08:26 AM..
 

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NICE(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   NICE(1)

NAME
nice, nohup - run a command at low priority (sh only) SYNOPSIS
nice [ -number ] command [ arguments ] nohup command [ arguments ] DESCRIPTION
Nice executes command with low scheduling priority. If the number argument is present, the priority is incremented (higher numbers mean lower priorities) by that amount up to a limit of 20. The default number is 10. The super-user may run commands with priority higher than normal by using a negative priority, e.g. `--10'. Nohup executes command immune to hangup and terminate signals from the controlling terminal. The priority is incremented by 5. Nohup should be invoked from the shell with `&' in order to prevent it from responding to interrupts by or stealing the input from the next per- son who logs in on the same terminal. FILES
nohup.out standard output and standard error file under nohup SEE ALSO
csh(1), setpriority(2), renice(8) DIAGNOSTICS
Nice returns the exit status of the subject command. BUGS
Nice and nohup are particular to sh(1). If you use csh(1), then commands executed with ``&'' are automatically immune to hangup signals while in the background. There is a builtin command nohup which provides immunity from terminate, but it does not redirect output to nohup.out. Nice is built into csh(1) with a slightly different syntax than described here. The form ``nice +10'' nices to positive nice, and ``nice -10'' can be used by the super-user to give a process more of the processor. 4th Berkeley Distribution May 8, 1986 NICE(1)
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