Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:58:16 +0100 From: Oliver Fuchs <oliverfuchs@onlinehome.de> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: what does "rm //" delete? Message-ID: <20041130035816.GA2938@oliverfuchs.onlinehome.de> In-Reply-To: <41A9CB66.1050804@freebsd.org> References: <20041128112146.GA1696@oliverfuchs.onlinehome.de> <41A9CB66.1050804@freebsd.org>
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On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Mark Ovens wrote: > Oliver Fuchs wrote: > >Hi, > > > >I had a directory which contained the following: > > > >ls showed me simple this: "?" with 0 bytes > >ls -axl showed me nothing > > > >So I tried to delete the directory but could not succeed with "rm -R" > >because the "directory is not empty". I changed to the directory and tried > >to delete everything inside with "rm *" but also did not succeed. It seemed > >that the file had no name. So than I did a mistake and wanted to delete the > >file with no name with the operation: > > > >rm -R // > > > >This was a big mistake which I noticed soon enough (some files in /bin were > >deleted). I could repair the damage but what I want to know is what exactly > >is > > > >rm -R // > > > >deleting. It seems that it is deleting everything? > > > > It is, you're recursively deleting / - multiple '/' are treated as one; try > > cd //usr//bin Yes, it was a hurtful expirience but now I know that rm // is the same as rm / > > To delete the rogue file try > > rm -i * > > in the directory the file is in, answering 'n' for all other files. > > If that fails, try copying everything you need in the directory it is in > to somewhere else then recursively deleting the directory > > rm -rf /path/to/dir/with/rogue/file Tried it but had no chance. In any case I had to formate that drive new so I finally made it to disappear. This was a confisung day in the life of my FreeBSD system. So thank you again for helping and answering. Oliver > > HTH > > Mark > > >Thanx in advance > > > >Oliver > > > > > > --- > avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. > Virus Database (VPS): 0448-1, 26/11/2004 > Tested on: 28/11/2004 12:58:15 > avast! - copyright (c) 2000-2004 ALWIL Software. > http://www.avast.com > > -- ... don't touch the bang bang fruit
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