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From: pepe@naleco.com (Josh Good)
Subject: [TUHS] There is turmoil in Linux-land - When did rm first avoid going upwards?
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2017 23:42:14 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170424214212.GA4966@naleco.com> (raw)

Hello all.

It's off-topic for this list, but there is turmoil in Linux-land. A bug
was discovered in systemd, whereby systemd re-implemented "rm"
functionality without following POSIX "rm" behaviour. This could kill a
system, as explained here: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/5644

The reference POSIX "rm" behaviour is that "rm -rf .*" should NOT delete
the current and parent directories, as stated here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/rm.html#tag_20_111_16

So, to get on-topic, I have a question for UNIX historians: when was it
first defined in the UNIX realm that "rm -r .*" should NOT delete the
current and parent directories? Would the command "cd /tmp ; rm -rf .*"
be able to kill a V6 or V7 UNIX system?

Regards,

-- 
Josh Good



             reply	other threads:[~2017-04-24 21:42 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-04-24 21:42 Josh Good [this message]
2017-04-24 21:48 ` Alec Muffett
2017-04-24 21:59   ` Arthur Krewat
2017-04-24 22:10 ` Kurt H Maier
2017-04-24 22:06 Noel Chiappa
2017-04-24 22:18 ` Josh Good
2017-04-24 23:23   ` Kurt H Maier
2017-04-25  0:06     ` Ron Natalie
2017-04-25  0:18       ` Kurt H Maier
2017-04-25  0:22         ` ron minnich
2017-04-25  0:24           ` Kurt H Maier
2017-04-25  0:26             ` ron minnich
2017-04-25  0:59 Noel Chiappa
2017-04-25  1:34 Noel Chiappa

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