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Acetech
Flight Engineer Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 5,200 Views

what if I fire command rm -rf /*

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What will happen if I type a command rm -rf /*

                   - Is all files of root directory gets deleted

                                              or

                   - It won't be able to enter into that directory

                                              or

                    - If it is delete the all data then is it is possible to reproduce that data

 

Akash S. Solanke
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2 Solutions

Accepted Solutions
Scott
Starfighter Starfighter
Starfighter
  • 5,171 Views

@Acetech first, don't do that.

That command will do a recursive deletion of all the the directories under /.  It will delete all of /bin first, then /boot, then /dev, etc. etc.  At some point it'll delete something that will cause significant system errors and your machine will stop functioning.  After a reboot, for which you will probably have to hard-poweroff the machine, upon booting back up, it will likely not complete it's boot.

This is not really something you can repair.  Instead, you'd have to do a re-installation and once the machine is re-installed, access system backups to restore data onto it.

Not really a situation you want to be in.

-STM

--
Manager, Technical Marketing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Certified Engineer (100-000-264)

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Tracy_Baker
Starfighter Starfighter
Starfighter
  • 5,137 Views

Try it! Create a virtual machine with a snapshot. Issue the command (with privleges) and see what happens. Then, when you've satified your curiosity, restore the virtual machine from the snapshot.

I just did it. I got a lot of "permission denied" messages and then it simply locked up. .I had to hard reboot.

Upon reboot, I got a grub rescue> prompt.

Reverted the snapshot and all was good!

Program Lead at Arizona's first Red Hat Academy, est. 2005
Estrella Mountain Community College

View solution in original post

3 Replies
Ricardo
Flight Engineer Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 5,197 Views

You sit in a very confortable chair, and cry. 

Scott
Starfighter Starfighter
Starfighter
  • 5,172 Views

@Acetech first, don't do that.

That command will do a recursive deletion of all the the directories under /.  It will delete all of /bin first, then /boot, then /dev, etc. etc.  At some point it'll delete something that will cause significant system errors and your machine will stop functioning.  After a reboot, for which you will probably have to hard-poweroff the machine, upon booting back up, it will likely not complete it's boot.

This is not really something you can repair.  Instead, you'd have to do a re-installation and once the machine is re-installed, access system backups to restore data onto it.

Not really a situation you want to be in.

-STM

--
Manager, Technical Marketing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Certified Engineer (100-000-264)
Tracy_Baker
Starfighter Starfighter
Starfighter
  • 5,138 Views

Try it! Create a virtual machine with a snapshot. Issue the command (with privleges) and see what happens. Then, when you've satified your curiosity, restore the virtual machine from the snapshot.

I just did it. I got a lot of "permission denied" messages and then it simply locked up. .I had to hard reboot.

Upon reboot, I got a grub rescue> prompt.

Reverted the snapshot and all was good!

Program Lead at Arizona's first Red Hat Academy, est. 2005
Estrella Mountain Community College
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