$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install

Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by wongarsu on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @02:32PM (#29166311)

No:

    # rm -rf /
    rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'
    rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe

There's still lots of ways to screw up a rm, like "rm -rf /*" or deleting your entire home directory, but a space after the initial / was apparently common enough that they eventually put a big failsafe for that in the GNU version.

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by initplus on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @07:08PM (#29169325)

More serious than users fatfingering the command were scripts with code like

  rm -rf /$MYVAR

If you don't set $MYVAR and don't set bash to error on unset variables you are in for trouble.

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by OJFord on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @07:32PM (#29169540)

I don't recall which one it is (u for unset perhaps?) but I cover this by starting every (bash, E and pipefail are not POSIX) script with `set -eEuo pipefail`. All should be the default IMO, I don't understand - other than back-compat - why you wouldn't want them.

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by SAI_Peregrinus on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @09:05PM (#29170288)

It's -u.

You can also prevent this by never using $VAR, and instead always using ${VAR:?} to exit with error if VAR is unset (or use one of the other options to provide a default).

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by andrewmackrodt on Wednesday November 10, 2021 @09:28AM (#29174960)

A lesson I learnt several years ago when I discovered that mktemp behaves differently on macOS versus the GNU version in Linux.

From that day onward I always make sure the first line of my bash scripts contains at least "set -e".

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by johnmaguire on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @02:37PM (#29166373)

I don't think OSX uses GNU tools unless you install them through brew.

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Re:$ sudo rm -rf / === NPM install by girvo on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @07:25PM (#29169487)

macOS doesn't use the GNU versions, though.

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