:: Re: [DNG] Bad UEFI: was Systemd at …
Top Page
Delete this message
Reply to this message
Author: Didier Kryn
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Bad UEFI: was Systemd at work: rm -rf EFI
Le 06/02/2016 17:19, Rainer Weikusat a écrit :
> Steve Litt<slitt@???> writes:
>> >On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 18:33:44 +0100 Didier Kryn<kryn@???> wrote:
>> >
>>> >>      People have always expected rm -rf / to destroy the OS. They
>>> >>also know that, from the keyboard, with root priviledge, they can
>>> >>destroy the partition table of the disk. All this is repairable by
>>> >>the admin her/himself.

>>> >>
>>> >>      The ability to brick the motherboard is brand new.

>> >
>> >Not only brand new, but an entirely new level of consequence.
>> >
>> >With excellent backups, rm -rf / or even dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 is
>> >correctable with a few hours of work, on the premises, with only
>> >resources on the premises.
> A somewhat seriously wrong conception about the relation between / (the
> root of the filesystem name tree) and /dev/sda1 (some partition of a
> mass storage device) seems to exist here.


     Sure Rainer, admins with a little of experience know that. This was 
just a partial enumeration of simple actions able to destroy an 
installed OS.


     You are right to insist on the  BIG difference between these two 
actions and the fact that rm -rf is much more destructive than 
reformatting /. However, the main danger of rm -rf, up to now, was 
typically its potential to wipe out /home. None of the pseudofilesystem 
represented a danger. Experienced people running this command would just 
unmount any filesystem they would like to preserve and would never have 
thought of this new, well hidden, danger.


     Didier