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sudo rm -rf / watch!

youtube.com — Running "sudo rm -rf /" deletes your Linux or Mac OS X while it is running. The kitty survived :)

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  • mckooiker, on 02/11/2008, -1/+197Survived in your RAM.....
    • njhardc0re, on 02/11/2008, -13/+3ya..what a toolbag
    • NoCt1, on 02/11/2008, -5/+93the best part im sitting in a linux class and got our teacher to run this command claiming i didnt know and obviously he didnt know.. Clas is dismissed.. W00t W00t...
      • mllawso, on 02/11/2008, -53/+7Linux class? What communist country are you from?
        • MacEnvy, on 02/11/2008, -1/+42Must be a good one. I wish I'd had a Linux class when I was in school. Sounds like the teacher's pretty though if he didn't know what that would do, and he's teaching the class.
          • MacEnvy, on 02/11/2008, -1/+23Oops, missed a word in there. "Teacher's pretty bad" was what I was going for.
          • jj101, on 02/11/2008, -0/+15we got you.
          • BigBallistix, on 02/11/2008, -1/+10Lol I had a substitute teacher once who held me back after class to help him turn off the computers. He was scared he'd break them.
          • knobtwiddler, on 02/11/2008, -0/+5what did we expect????
        • NoCt1, on 02/11/2008, -10/+6Um well. America is on that path.. But yes linux classes are requirements in most programs now..
          • KibibyteBrain, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4What programs? I don't even know of any top tier computer science or computer engineering programs that require a course in Linux, even at the graduate level. You take an operating systems course that covers how operating systems work and how to program them(namely unix like operating systems) and therefore probably use Linux in the process, but never have a class on Linux.(you are probably assumed to be able to RTFM to find out how to use the terminals yourself) In fact, it might be hard to find an actual Linux class for that very reason.
        • nnagflar, on 02/12/2008, -0/+13I'm taking a linux class right now. What does that have to do with communism?
          • Magnus150, on 02/12/2008, -2/+38In soviet russia, rm -rf YOU!!!
          • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -9/+4Magnus150 < ------- for once, epic win.

            this is how the meme is done kids, watch and learn. now stop butchering it in every story.
      • gandhii, on 02/12/2008, -0/+37errr... rm being one of the most basic commands and all, I kinda wonder about what your teacher is actually capable of teaching..
      • cytokinesis, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1dude that's amazing
      • moush, on 02/12/2008, -7/+1linux class? epic fail
      • jhaks, on 02/12/2008, -0/+8Holy crap... your teacher must be pretty dense.
      • EmSixTeen, on 02/12/2008, -0/+10Sure you did.
      • stalefries, on 02/13/2008, -0/+6Pics or it didn't happen.
    • brad016, on 02/13/2008, -2/+3I have to say GOD DAMIT!!! I just had to ***** try this on my ipod touch, noooo i couldn't take his word for it that it works on mac osx...no...i actually HAD...TO...TRY it! and now im restoring itto 1.1.3, well good thing ZiPhone came out just in time. BTW the terminal i was using was the one recomended by MobileFinder.
      DAMIT!
  • bianconeri4ever, on 02/11/2008, -51/+20I once did a dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda on a company's computer just one day before my resignation....ahh fun :)
    • podgey22, on 02/11/2008, -0/+53Yes, you're a tit.
    • kimcheefreak17, on 02/11/2008, -5/+55I'm sorry, but to the Linux illiterate, what does that command do?
      • 16777216, on 02/11/2008, -5/+56Over wrights ALL data on the first hard drive with random noise.
        • voetsjoeba, on 02/11/2008, -0/+46Is that at all like overwriting?
        • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -9/+3@voets
          it *is* overwriting, unlike what you normally may think of as "overwriting" a file by saving something of the same name.

          When you save a new file over an old one, you aren't actually overwriting any file data, just the entry in the table of contents, the data is still there; similar with rm, rm merely removes the entry in the table of contents, but the data itself is (mostly, usually) recoverable. This is *alot* more destructive than rm -rf /.

          Although, technically, even with this you can still recover the data (with the appropriate technology), due to a sort of magnetic "echo" left by the old bit pattern. If you want to *completely* obliterate data (to DoD standards) you need to overwrite with random noise at least 7 times or so; some even go so far as saying that you really need upwards of 30-40 rewrites, although that's probably overkill. Derik's Boot and Nuke livecd is a great tool for this; hopefully for the paranoid and not the sadistic.
          • rootneg2, on 02/13/2008, -0/+2i'm just curious now: is this getting dugg down because people think i'm wrong? or is it getting dugg down because i missed the joke?
          • s6t9eve, on 02/13/2008, -1/+2cos you missed the joke dumb *****
          • specialK16, on 02/14/2008, -0/+1@steve: lol.
        • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -1/+11oh.

          i just noticed that you were making fun of the typo..... i'm slow....

          at least i proved my geek-cred...
        • buu700, on 08/26/2008, -2/+1Now the real question begs to be answered: What happens when you run 'rm -rf /' after switching to root with 'su'?

          (I say this is the real question because the permissions of 'sudo' are a bit more limited straight up root.)
      • calbff, on 02/11/2008, -2/+27No idea why you're being dugg down, I had no clue either.
    • doctechnical, on 02/11/2008, -0/+62Wow, way to stick it to the man. Did you steal some office supplies too?
    • stix213, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2and you are lucky you aren't someone's bitch behind bars right now
  • whereisian, on 02/11/2008, -8/+127that was more entertaining than it should have been
    • dallen, on 02/11/2008, -0/+78It was like a nerd snuff film
    • oilcan, on 02/12/2008, -8/+5if you thought that was entertaining, then I've got this grass in my yard you can watch grow. you'll flip!
    • Magnus150, on 02/12/2008, -0/+7It was the nerd equivalent to watching douchebags crack their nuts over various objects. It was glorious.
    • caleb4mj, on 02/12/2008, -1/+7[user@nova ~]$ sudo rm -rf /
      Password:
      user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

      Doesn't work for me. :(
    • astrosmash, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3This one is more fun:
      $ sudo `which rm` `which rm`
      $
    • moush, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2boring ***** imo
  • ConradDanger, on 02/11/2008, -2/+39this just seems cruel ...
    • antdude, on 02/12/2008, -3/+1Get PETA on this!
      • colto, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2Nah man, didn't you hear? The kitty survived!
    • caleb4mj, on 02/12/2008, -4/+0and unusual..
      The comments have changed..

      just weird.

      Looks like someone is trying to tell us Linux is insecure or something. Kinda amusing, at best.
  • nooreazy, on 02/11/2008, -1/+61I bet some punk is gonna spam that in the ubuntu IRC channels
    • Phatt138, on 02/11/2008, -0/+37I wouldn't worry about most Linux users being unaware of what the command does. Now, you could get them to enter it other ways, but something tells me that "type 'sudo rm -rf /' and your computer will speed up" was probably played out about 10 years ago.

      Of course, there's a sucker born every minute, so maybe you're right.
      • BigBallistix, on 02/11/2008, -3/+8Well if someone dies every two seconds and the world's population is growing fast, then there'd have to be a healthy birth at least every 1.9 seconds. Then you'd have to factor in birth control and hey presto! You know how much sex people have =). But at the ratio of births/suckers I'd have to say that a sucker is born much more frequently, from my experiences with... *shudder* people.
        • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1a sucker is born approximately every 3.53 seconds, +/- 5% error

          just doesn't have the same ring to it.


          btw, anybody wanna whip out some probability theory (i believe this should be a poisson distribution?) and get more exact here? probability was never my forte
          • mathmanjeffy, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2Are you honestly suggesting there's a trial-probability on births for whether or not the person born will be a "sucker"?
      • caleb4mj, on 02/12/2008, -1/+0Nice to see some confirmation of my suspicion this was some sort of attack on the Linux community. Good luck with that.
      • ostracize, on 02/12/2008, -1/+5:(){ :|:& };:
        • benplaut, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1I wonder what happens if you put that in vi...
          • trogdoor, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1For it to do anything it would have to be ":! :(){ :|:& };:" but don't try that :)
        • trogdoor, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3Needless to say ( but I am going to anyway ) you should not run that command, it's a fork bomb.
          • ostracize, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2Yes, not trying to be a dick, but since we were on this kind of topic, I thought I'd post that one. :D

            This command is relatively safe to run. A hard reboot of the system will fix the problem. You can find out how secure your system is by checking to see if a regular user can run this command and crash the system.
      • jer2eydevil88, on 02/12/2008, -2/+2Want to enable cheat mode in Counter Strike Source? Once in a game hit Shift + F10 and you will get a cheats menu.
    • robbie32, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4Some punk already did... few weeks ago i think.
  • Conway, on 02/11/2008, -33/+5Maybe he's putting Vista on!
    • mrfreeziexp, on 02/11/2008, -1/+9BWAHAHA!! that's a good one.
    • DoSSiN, on 02/11/2008, -0/+14Maybe he will reload Linux and do it again, and again, and again, while you deal with Vista.
      • HonoredMule, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3Or maybe he'll just pop in a liveCD, copy his backup onto the drive he wiped, and be all set.
  • jake6730, on 02/11/2008, -10/+206DUGG lol its actually my video :D
    • wellyuk, on 02/11/2008, -9/+30So did you put Vista on instead?
    • crossmr, on 02/12/2008, -20/+2evidence? I claim it as mine.
      If its really yours edit the description to contain your digg username.
      • antdude, on 02/12/2008, -1/+6Mine! --seagull from Finding Nemo movie.
      • jake6730, on 02/12/2008, -0/+25there you go smart ass
        • cbergstrom, on 02/12/2008, -1/+15Wow. crossmr got completely owned.
          • crossmr, on 02/12/2008, -15/+2Not at all. We finally got someone to put up. How many times a day do you see someone make an outlandish claim on digg? I'm tired of them coming without a shred evidence.
    • dagaz, on 02/12/2008, -3/+6Man you got balls for actually going ahead and doing that. I was expecting the end result to be much worse.
  • TGMD, on 02/11/2008, -10/+11I actually did this once
    • mllawso, on 02/11/2008, -2/+6I did too.
      Ironically, It was when I was trying to delete a backup .tar
      (sudo rm -r * in a directory containing a soft link to the root file system = bad.)
      • mickstephenson, on 02/11/2008, -0/+14why on earth would you need a symlink to the root directory?
        • capiCrimm, on 02/12/2008, -0/+9I have no clue, but now I'm just trying to think of a directory someone would delete that requires root permissions. This shall surely be the best prank ever.
        • Shadow503, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3@capiCrimm
          Way too evil. . . How about something in /etc/init.d?
        • mllawso, on 02/12/2008, -0/+0The backup was on a external hd, so I though I was in /mnt/wd_passport, when I was actually in /mnt
    • jojo1224, on 02/11/2008, -10/+0I did this too and my install survived and has been fine ever since and this was on PClinuxOS 2007.
    • centran, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1wiped out a web directory with rm -rf * once... On a drive formated under reiser. Opps!
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+8random googling on "rm -rf /" brought up this gem (random anon, not me) just to prove that you don't have to be a clueless, bumbling, n00b to make the rm -rf / mistake:



      I consider myself a seasoned Linux user. Been using Linux for more than a decade. I recently toasted a filesystem with rm -rf /. What I actually typed though was something like:

      f=/path/to/somedir rm -rf $f/ ; some_command $f; cp something $f/somewhere

      Looks safe? Look again, I forgot a semicolon after f=/path/to/somedir. Effectively that was the same as type rm -rf /. If you want to try this out and not toast your root file system do this:

      f=/home/user; echo rm -rf $f/
      then this:
      f=
      f=/home/user echo rm -rf $f/

      And see what would have ran without the echo. I'm a lot more paranoid about typing rm as root now. I always stop before pressing the enter key. If you don't think you would ever type something like this, think about any scripts you may have written where you call rm with a variable. Are you sure the variable got set? I'm posting semi-anonymously out of embarassment. *hangs-head-in-shame*
      • hyperair, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Why did you even bother using "rm -rf $f/;"? It works well enough without the trailing /, and can avoid your error completely, even if you forgot that ';'
        • rootneg2, on 02/13/2008, -0/+1like i said; wasn't me.

          I don't know what they were trying to do with it.
  • camintmier, on 02/11/2008, -3/+130Now if only we could sudo rm -rf people...
    • daines88, on 02/11/2008, -0/+70We can... it's just a bit messy.
      • bushawa, on 02/11/2008, -0/+18Yeah, do you remember Harold? I thought so ;)
    • eshiki, on 02/11/2008, -4/+14You can... you just have to be good at hacking...
      • capiCrimm, on 02/12/2008, -5/+1pro tip: use a live cd and *don't mount*. It'll leave less evidence. If you want to finger someone, however that is a safe operation. There probably won't be anyone else active on a live cd, though.
    • cristianl, on 02/11/2008, -2/+12If it was in Windows, it would be called an Illegal Operation.
      • HonoredMule, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3If it was Windows, peeking your head over the cubicle partitions would be an Illegal Operation.
    • lordTalus, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2What school do you go to? We need to see if we can get you on the news.
    • ScottyWZ, on 02/12/2008, -5/+19sudo rm -rf /usa/florida/clearwater/churchOfScientologyHQ
    • PePas, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2Oh, you don't know yet?
      You will all be deleted, unless you surrender...
    • Foamator, on 02/12/2008, -7/+2When George Bush speaks, it sounds like sudo rm -rf is running in his head.
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+8i prefer to kill -9 them
    • eigenweasel, on 02/12/2008, -1/+6I seem to remember that the Nazis ran
      $ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/jews
      but someone CTRL-C'ed the job when it was only a third done.
  • DrywallThief, on 02/11/2008, -6/+17That cat wallpaper is kind of cool. Anyone have a link to it?
  • MikeEx, on 02/11/2008, -3/+56Reminds me of the time I went to delete a folder in my home directory after extracting a package file there... "/home/mike/bin"
    I opened the console into my home directory and typed...
    sudo rm -rf /bin
    :(
    • Phatt138, on 02/11/2008, -0/+7I wanted to shoot myself the first time I screwed up an 'rm -rf'. I was deleting some folders in a mounted disk image, so I navigated to the image's root folder and, with a smile on my face, typed "sudo rm -rf /System /Library /Applications" etc. I started to get a sinking feeling when the external drive that the disk image was on never spun up, and when I looked again at my command I suddenly remembered that just because /Volumes/My Book/Tiger.Backup/ was my pwd, it wasn't my -root- directory...

      I hated myself for a week, but other users assured me that almost every longterm Linux junkie learns this lesson (or similar ones) the hard way...
      • bitspace, on 02/11/2008, -0/+8I think it's almost a rite of passage. It happened to me a long time ago on a SunOS 4.1.3 box, except without 'sudo.'
        Intent: rm -rf /tmp/*
        actual: rm -rf / tmp/*

        • campigenus, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5Thanks. I no longer feel alone in the universe.
      • ccheath, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2isn't the difference between / and just the first lesson when learning *nix file systems?
    • bitspace, on 02/11/2008, -0/+16I think you discovered a drawback to sudo. It gets people in the habit of typing it before any shell command.
      You don't (shouldn't) have to sudo to remove files from your home directory.

      • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3well, you definitely shouldn't be using sudo except for when you absolutely have to.

        But perhaps sudo was still necessary; oopses can happen even when using sudo (just not rm) properly. For example, I have both gentoo and ubuntu installed on my laptop and occasionally access the gentoo / from ubuntu or vice versa to fix something that's broken (dual-booting 2 linux systems can be more useful than it seems at first) It gets really easy to mix up the two on the command line, and need to have root privliges in order to make changes. Or perhaps you misconfigured an application, that is now dumping root-owned files in your home directory. that's why i alias rm='rm -iv' (see below)
      • jgtg32a, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3Yea, but I have an even worse habit, sudo su.
    • YourDoom123, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5one time i was trying to delete a file, and typed:
      "rm -rf /home/ " and the space of course killed just my portion of the home drive... and naturally i was on ext3 so recovery was impossible... that was a fun night.
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+8protip:

      alias rm='rm -iv --preserve-root'
      alias mv='mv -iv'
      alias cp='cp -iv'


      stick those lines in ~/.bashrc somewhere ( or ~/.bash_profile ~/.profile etc. whatever your shell startup file is) -i makes it prompt before action -v shows you what files are being affected and --preserve-root makes rm fail to operate recursively on the root dir. it can be a little inconvenient at times, but it can save a lot of oopses, and can always be overridden
      • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4addendum: (sorry, missed the edit)

        don't worry, for rm and mv -i only prompts before an overwrite, not for every copy/move regardless; otherwise it would be a huge pain.

        secondly, i vaguely remember reading man entry for some sort of alternate/extended -i option that would only prompt for the the first 3-5 times or so, and then simply proceed automatically. I can't seem to find it though, was this for some other command? or am i just going crazy...?
      • mrBitch, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3@rootneg2 - RE : the ALIAS pro tip :
        That is a great tip - using it now ( thank you ) :

        alias rm='rm -iv --preserve-root'
        alias mv='mv -iv'
        alias cp='cp -iv'
  • whiteknives, on 02/11/2008, -1/+94Kitty must be root.
    • VyPR, on 02/11/2008, -2/+50im in ur computer steelin ur linux
    • pbrooks100, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3% cat 'the can of tuna'
      cat: cannot open the can of tuna
      % cat catfood
      cat: cannot open catfood
      % cat "food in cans"
      cat: can't open food in cans
      %
  • drph1l, on 02/11/2008, -8/+135im in ur linuxz deletin' ur rootz
  • harrisbradley, on 02/11/2008, -27/+2/bury
  • Wronghead, on 02/11/2008, -10/+47I think I can safely file this away under "things I knew over a decade ago."

    Amusing none the less.
    • Tenlow, on 02/11/2008, -1/+7Having learned this lesson quite the hard way, I also can file it under "things I already knew"
      • ccheath, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2i'm surprised so many people are admitting to this...
        • Tenlow, on 02/12/2008, -3/+1Everyone who's used a *nix based OS has done this before. No reason to hide what we all know to be true.

          The trick is not doing it again.
          • antdude, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3My worse ones:

            rm * in my home folder/directory.

            and fsck on mounted drive (I knew it was bad but I didn't know I was on the wrong drive!). :(
          • ftyuv, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1I've actually never rm'ed anything that vital before. (I've deleted a couple personal files by accident, but that doesn't count.) My big newbie mistake was moving glibc in an effort to get configure/make to see it. Kinda hoses your system, and since even mv is dynamically linked to glibc, I couldn't move it back. That taught me to a) never futz if I don't know what I'm doing, and b) always keep a restore CD handy.
  • FoxFaction, on 02/11/2008, -9/+2Okay.
  • santixar, on 02/11/2008, -4/+131Don't be exagerated, that command doesn't wo
    • bugfish, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4Your shenanigans just made me spill KoolAde,
  • obijohn, on 02/11/2008, -3/+53Once I tried sudo rm -rf /home
    Parents were not amused.
    • antdude, on 02/12/2008, -5/+2Your parents use Linux/UNIX? :P OK, Mac OS X then.
  • applemachome, on 02/11/2008, -2/+37I did this with Mac OS X Tiger - I threw the System folder in the trash and entered my password and it went bye bye. It still ran fine for about a minute, then menus started having the blocks instead of text, then the dock, desktop and etc went away, then dashboard and expose continued to work until it eventually kernel paniced after 30 minutes.
    • stalefries, on 02/13/2008, -1/+1Reminds me of the idiot who deleted /usr because he said "What do I need this for, I already have '/Users'!"
  • coit, on 02/11/2008, -2/+17What was that running on an Asus EEE or something. Tiny screen.
    • lonemarauder, on 02/11/2008, -7/+16You have too many files on your system. Youtube automatically reduces screen size based on disk space. Get rid of some files and try again.
    • halofourteen, on 02/11/2008, -0/+26I assumed it was a VM.
    • championchap, on 02/11/2008, -0/+14Virtual machine probably.
    • Sahtor, on 02/11/2008, -0/+11Most propably it was run inside VMware or Virtualbox which runs in a window. Makes the screen recording easier.
    • blackjack75, on 02/11/2008, -0/+29Aside from the screen recording being made easier, using a VM has the pleasant advantage of not destroying all your files for the sake of a stupid video.
  • truspect0r, on 02/11/2008, -32/+5OSX secure much? haha
    • benbfree, on 02/11/2008, -4/+10umm, you have to have admin privileges to do that, if you don't trust others with your computer don't give them the sudo password. If you don't trust yourself to not sudo rm -rf /, get a PC.
      • directive0, on 02/11/2008, -5/+2I'm digging you up Truespect0r. Best troll on digg.
  • rbalik, on 02/11/2008, -12/+7This isn't exactly news. I think everyone pretty much knows not to delete your whole hard drive. Same thing as knowing not to type format c: back in the DOS days.
    I have actually done this by accident though. I was compiling a program which had the makefile changed to install into / and i did a make clean as root which basically did an rm -rf /
    I realized about halfway through what was going on and stopped it but it was too late and I had to reinstall everything.
    • sancho, on 02/11/2008, -0/+8You'd be surprised. Lots of new people come to Linux every day, and they don't always know about dangerous commands. If they ask for help on a forum, someone may provide them with this as a command to try. Before they find out how bad it is, it may be too late.

      Plus, there's the fact that if you tell someone "Don't run <x> command." without telling them what it does, they'll likely run it. I learned this the hard way when I got a few people mad at me in grade school. We had these Commodore 64s that we were learning basic programming on, and I told someone not to run the command, "POKE 120,0". I explicitly said that they should never run the command, ever. They ran it in the middle of typing a BASIC program.

      The command keeps the interpreter from executing any further commands. Period. As such, there's no way to disable this behavior while the machine is running. They lost about an hour's worth of programming.
  • marrstu, on 02/11/2008, -2/+67 We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
    Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.
    • blackjack75, on 02/11/2008, -3/+30#4)...
      #5) Profit?
    • Daz3, on 02/11/2008, -2/+4Had pretty much that exact lecture at Uni.
    • Seta, on 02/11/2008, -1/+11Password:
      • jerkfaceirl, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5password123
      • gavintlgold, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1[sudo] password for gavin:
      • spacebar14, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5hunter
      • bxblox, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2abc@123

        /ran a cracker on pw file in one of my CS professors web directory and 4 people were actually using that
    • jdhore1, on 02/11/2008, -1/+10ahh, the fun little message the first time you sudo *reminisces*
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4marrstu is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

      uh oh
  • rexbron, on 02/11/2008, -3/+26Meh, dd -if /dev/random -of / would have been more entertaining.
    • InsaneMachine, on 02/11/2008, -0/+16you probably want /dev/urandom It would take a really long time otherwise (urandom is pseudo random number generator, while random is more random, and is calculated completly different but my point is that it is very slow for large jobs)
    • Subassy, on 02/12/2008, -0/+9My limited ability to translate unix and dd commands indicates that'd be awesome...
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1and more destructive.

      if you know what you're doin, you can actually recover from an rm -rf / if that's all you do. not nearly as easy for dd
    • cdmarcus, on 02/12/2008, -0/+7Er, that wouldn't work... / is a directory, not a file, and the syntax is wrong. What you mean is
      dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda
      although some systems have different paths to their hard drive device.
      • rexbron, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2True, dd only works on files, but in unix, everythings a file.
  • freeport7, on 02/11/2008, -10/+9Did himself a favor with that hideous desktop image ...
  • hadak, on 02/11/2008, -2/+8I let that run for about 5 seconds on my Tiger install. Lost addressbook.app...for the most part.
  • neopherine, on 02/11/2008, -14/+1Been on digg front-page before: http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2007/12/27/what-happens- ...
    • stevene, on 02/11/2008, -0/+13Hmm... That doesn't look like a link to a Digg story page.
  • beatryder, on 02/11/2008, -2/+24Dugz 4 teh kitteh
  • andywj, on 02/11/2008, -12/+9WTF how did this make the front page?? WooHoo look at me I can type/run sudo rm -rf / and delete files. Now if the computer blew up or ripped a hole in the space-time continuum that would of been impressive. Tomorrow there will probably be someone on the front of digg using a mac and typing "say hello" on the terminal
    • tuqqer, on 02/11/2008, -0/+4Yeah, if it's not entertaining or new to me, how could it possibly be to anyone else on the planet.
    • PawFox, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4[paw@MacFluff ~]# echo hello
      hello
    • Magnus150, on 02/12/2008, -1/+6sudo rm -rf /digtroll/douchebag/andywi
      password: *****
  • championchap, on 02/11/2008, -3/+10So does this just delete your root directory?
    if so, why is this an included command? Unless you can use it to wipe other drives too perhaps.. still, why would you want to be able to do this when inside the OS? Surely it should be more restricted?

    Do pardon my ignorance, these are all honest questions.
    • negativefx, on 02/11/2008, -4/+18man rm
      man sudo
      • Phatt138, on 02/12/2008, -2/+3If he was on a Linux box he probably wouldn't be asking...not that he couldn't find manpages online, but he probably isn't aware of what they are either.
    • PawFox, on 02/11/2008, -1/+25The command "sudo" is allow you to run root commands as a normal user

      rm = remove
      -rf = recursively deletes files
      / = the whole system

      you only run "rm -rf /" as root to get the full effect.
    • Nekiruhs, on 02/11/2008, -0/+10/ is your root drive. The command sudo rm -rf is the actual command. Sudo makes the command run at root level, giving it access to all files. Rm is the command for deleting files and -rf makes it run recursively and force deletions by ignoring warnings. Its not necesarily an included command, its a string of commands that deletes everything. Why should it be more restricted? It already asks for your password as confirmation. You can run sudo rm -rf /media/hda1 to delete another drive too. I myself don't see a use for it, but why limit it? Its very hard for a virus, etc, to get root access anyway.
    • geekworking, on 02/11/2008, -1/+6This command is restricted to the root user (administrator) only. Normal users do not have write permission on the system folders and cannot delete the entire hard drive. The logic behind such a powerful command is that an admin should know better (however many have made the mistake).

      If the -R option did not exist and you wanted to delete a folder and all sub-folders & files you would have to go through each one one by one to delete (or write a script to go through one by one).
    • loconet, on 02/11/2008, -14/+6Yah, Why would anyone want to have the ability to delete a directory. Unbelievable what those linux hippies are including with their OS.

      There is honest ignorance and then there is posting without thinking.
      • championchap, on 02/11/2008, -2/+10Yes, and this was the first. I didnt realise that it was a string of commands rather than a single "Delete root" command, which sounded like a silly thing to include.
        I asked for help and all apart from yuo gave it, so thanks to everyone else for clearing that up for me, and i assume some other digg users too.
    • lonemarauder, on 02/11/2008, -3/+25The video is a thumb in the face to intellectual property law. Microsoft patented the ability to delete all files on the hard drive with the "deltree c:*.*" command. Linux hackers successfully duplicated the functionality with "rm -rf /", thereby infringing upon the patent. The video is an inside joke - that intellectual property pirates had successfully duplicated the deltree functionality. According to the terms of the patent, anyone deleting their hard drive owes $50 to Microsoft. It just further demonstrates how there's no such thing as a free lunch. The work of Microsoft engineers to perfect this capability in modern computer systems is being uncompensated. Moreover, by broadcasting instructions for doing it, the video maker has violated the DMCA, which outlaws the dissemination of devices or technology used to violate intellectual property laws. I don't understand why people seem to think they can just go around deleting files for free.
      • mleh, on 02/12/2008, -2/+8Sarcasm is great and all, but Unix slightly predates DOS.
      • cdmarcus, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4rm -rf / is actually quite a bit worse than deltree c:*.* just because not only does it delete the contents of your main drive, but anything mounted on the system with write access.
      • stotty, on 02/14/2008, -0/+1Yay, it's an article about *nix, I'll just insert some sarcastic/derogatory comment aimed at M$ and everyone will think I'm so witty!
    • jdhore1, on 02/11/2008, -0/+5For the record, the ability to rm -rf / has been removed in Coreutils 6.9 that will probably be shipping with every distro release from now on.
      • Doriath, on 02/12/2008, -0/+7Bah. I have 6.9 installed and the temptation to test this is nearly overwhelming. I wonder when I did my last backup?
        • tgoose, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2sudo rm -rfi /

          And no, that won't damage anything unless you let it; read the man page if you want.
    • sirhomer, on 02/12/2008, -0/+8Was going to say rm -rf / doesn't work in the new coreutils release unless you compile it with the "MORON" flag enabled.

      Even with rm -rf / disabled there is about 2000 other ways to seriously mess up a computer from the command line. :)

      Always good to learn what a command does before you use it brothas!
    • azbmr, on 02/12/2008, -0/+16Linux assumes that if you are root, you know what the hell you are doing. It will shoot itself in the head without a second thought if you ask it to.
      • Phatt138, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Exactly. Rule 3. (of robot-hood, not the internetz)
    • stix213, on 02/12/2008, -0/+0Linux is about having complete control over your computer, from beginning to end. Where other OS's remove commands that could damage your OS, Linux does not follow that philosophy. In Linux, if you can mess up your OS you just restrict that to the root user. If you want to erase your entire HDD that is your choice. If you are going to use the "sudo" command or log in as the root user you should be very careful with what you type after.

      Most OS uses though do not require the use of "sudo" so this is only something that happens to Linux admins on an especially bad day :)
  • netwonder, on 02/11/2008, -11/+4lol. you know i wrote a an apple script that would run that in sudo on OS X. Great when you want to ***** with some one you hate.
  • FireStalker, on 02/11/2008, -2/+4someone see if this runs on norad?
  • nebkiwi, on 02/11/2008, -1/+6RD C: /S /Q
  • LoudMusic, on 02/11/2008, -2/+4/me searches for an Iron Eagle bit torrent.

    ;)
  • Daniel591992, on 02/11/2008, -1/+13I know no one cares and this is totally irrelevant, but I started using Linux last week and so far so good. To be honest, the only things I miss are iTunes (necessary because of iTMS purchases), and Photoshop/Dreamweaver. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleated Windows (d'oh). All that aside, the one thing I find fascinating about Ubuntu is that it can be the easiest or hardest Operating System. It all depends on what you want to use it for.
    • saphyrre, on 02/11/2008, -1/+5It depends more on WHO is using it rather than HOW you use it.:)
      • Daniel591992, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2What do you mean?
        • insertAliasHere, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5I would say that if you are the kind of person who actually wants to learn how to use the OS, aren't scared of it, and don't mind researching problems and then fixing them, it can be a great and easy OS to use.

          If, on the other hand, you are a user who doesn't need/want to know how their software works, never wants to troubleshoot your own problems, and just want things to work perfectly without having to learn anything, you might have a hard time.

          A nice explanation to a possibly derogatory comment.
          • Daniel591992, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2Oh, thanks :)

            The basic computer user would probably never install it, but if you can install and configure it for the person, then it can be easy to use.
      • Magnus150, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3World Health Organization?
    • pendrachken, on 02/12/2008, -0/+6what version of photoshop? I beleive all versions up to CS2 work decently with recent versions of wine. the only thing that seems to have issues sometimes is getting wine to recognize pressure sensitivity from the wacom driver if you use a tablet.

      I run photoshop 7.0 on debian etch with the latest wine builds without a problem, and I have heard CS1 and CS2 work very well also.
      • PJBovoNox, on 02/12/2008, -0/+0Don't act like they've always worked-- That's a fairly recent development.
    • gavintlgold, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3You can actually technically purchase and play back music from iTunes with Wine. I've done it. The music skips if you change windows, but otherwise works... if you really want to use iTunes.
    • snowblindnz, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2Install wine -> move dreamweaver & photoshop from c:/program files/ in windows into the wine partition in home/.wine/c_drive/program files/ , right click on the exe and run with wine. I couldnt get them installed via wine, but they worked this way without problem :)

      Hope that makes ubuntu a bit easier.

      I do miss the itunes album covers on my ipod though :(
      • automan, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2amarok puts album covers on my ipod. not to mention you can buy music through magnatunes, integrated into amarok. and with the release of amarok 2 soon, you will have many more options to support artists you like.
  • crazysamz, on 02/11/2008, -16/+7And they say Windows is not Secure enough...
    I can totally screw over any (if not all) Unix installs with a single keystroke in a terminal Window???

    I Think I'm going to try this on one of the Imacs in my School, just so I can LOL while the IT people have to reinstall.
    • swab, on 02/11/2008, -0/+15Why would they have to reinstall? Do you have root access?
      • Phatt138, on 02/12/2008, -0/+9More likely they'll just be left with a notice that your user name (assuming you have to log in) attempted to gain root access and delete their system. In which case -they'll- LOL.
    • Haohmaru, on 02/11/2008, -0/+6I believe rd /s /q * or del /s /f * will accomplish similar results in Windows, as an admin of course.
    • loconet, on 02/11/2008, -0/+13A single command plus the root password. Yes, just like 99% of all other Operating Systems (yes, including Windows).
    • Radan, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Though, you need root access (does admin work?) to the computer to do this command, something I hardly think they will give out to the students.
    • FingersMckenzie, on 02/11/2008, -0/+11If you can do that, then the IT people at your school should be fired.
    • brettmjohnson, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3Trying this on an school Mac will likely fail. The sudo command prompts for the password of a root or administrative user (or any user/group in /etc/sudoers). If the IT people were dumb enough to grant you root access, they deserve the pain.

      Even if you did succeed in trashing the file system, schools have ghost [disk] images of clean installs that are used to quickly restore computers to pristine, properly configured state.

      This is especially easy when using Target Disk Mode on a Mac.

    • tpink, on 02/11/2008, -0/+6Need root access from a regular user account? No problem!

      https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-so ...
    • drastik21, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2Ok, I just called your school to warn them some punk kid wants to sabotage their computers. Your mommy will be informed and she will put you in a timeout.
    • Phatt138, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2...and not that other people haven't done a decent job responding to your troll, but just keep in mind that when people talk about security in Linux vs. Windows, it's assumed that they don't have admin access to the computer in the first place. Every operating system contains potentially damaging commands - the question of security addresses whether or not these commands can possibly be forced upon the system from the outside, either through exploits or some insecurity in the way that sessions or passwords are managed.
      Linux has some potentially 'fatal' commands, but the strength of *nix's well-tested multi-user, multi-access-level environment makes it much more secure than the Windows environment has traditionally been. Think of 'rm' as a disarmed nuclear weapon - it's an exceedingly dangerous thing, but is actually quite safe until some human screws up and hits the wrong button or gives leaks the access code.
    • DarkDragon, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2What single keystroke? (no alias bs)
  • funkytaco, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2I've seen this happen in the datacenter too many times.
    Binaries and libraries get removed that make a reinstall necessary, but that should be obvious. Some customers still ask for "recovery" even if they're hacked. Sigh.
  • funkypenquin, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2I was just in IRC about a week ago and some kid did that on the suggestion of some one else. When he got knocked off, I felt bad for not warning him, but somewhat amused too. I have also seen it in some shell scripts and tutorials , and there was a article on digg , months ago about malicious commands. I thinks as linux , osx and other types of *nix become more popular you will see more of this tom-foolery .
  • bcamp1973, on 02/11/2008, -15/+4sudo rm -rf /George W. Bush /Dick Cheney /Hillary Clinton
    • FingersMckenzie, on 02/11/2008, -0/+14I think you meant "sudo rm -rf /George\ W.\ Bush /Dick\ Cheney /Hillary\ Clinton". But I buried you anyway...
      • Khabi, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3His attempt leaves the whitehouse empty, maybe he should take the Gentoo approach?
        echo "app-whitehouse/president intelligence alsa -offensive -war -daddycomplex" >> /etc/portage/package.use
        emerge -va app-whitehouse/president
  • Hortinstein, on 02/11/2008, -0/+75# [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo "You live"
    • omenmedia, on 02/11/2008, -1/+33Ha ha, very good... for those who may be going "huh?", Hortinstein made a sort of command-line Russian roulette.
    • saphyrre, on 02/11/2008, -0/+11Funny... this is for adrenaline-addicted IT admins :))
    • BigBallistix, on 02/11/2008, -4/+7I still don't get it. Please simultaneously teach me and bury me.
      • eltomo, on 02/12/2008, -0/+12I guess, if a random number is a multiple of 6 then / gets deleted, otherwise "You live".
      • sERIALeATER, on 02/12/2008, -8/+3If random number IS 6 Then
        echo "You live"
        ELSE
        "rm -rf /"
        • TheWindBlows, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4no it is a multiple of six
          % stands for "divide and provide remainder as answer"
          4 % 3 = 1
        • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3% means "modulo" or "modulus"

          essentially what TheWindBlows said for all practical purposes, though modular arithmetic is a more general concept.
    • Darkhacker, on 02/12/2008, -1/+13I'll be honest. I'm extremely tempted to try this. Just once of course, I'm not an idiot who will do it over and over again. But the temptation to do it just once and see if I live or not is so overwhelming.

      ... I lived! =D
    • Jargs, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1That is sweet i want to try haha
    • mohan34u, on 02/13/2008, -0/+1Really Cool Commandline.

      Windows please install bash. Because I want to do this in your command prompt.
  • ninjathis, on 02/11/2008, -12/+1any one else stoked that you can rate comments on youtube just like digg?!
    • jamesey, on 02/11/2008, -2/+16welcome to 2007
    • Radan, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1And no, we do not have any flying cars nor hover boards, and yes, the weather forecast still sucks.
    • lfroker, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2aaaaaand... bury.
  • sholdowa, on 02/11/2008, -2/+1sudo "find / -depth | xargs rm -rf"

    Will work a bit better...
  • fancyj, on 02/11/2008, -1/+3I was killdisk-ing some hard drives at work. Then I realized the next hard drive I started was c:. Stopped killdisk and the computer worked fine until I rebooted. Must have just gotten the mbr. So that was a fun 3 hour mistake.
  • Kenzan, on 02/11/2008, -0/+8Next up on Digg:
    Using the "cat" command.

    yeecch..that was pretty bad.

    More Like:
    bash-2.04# man hole
    bash-2.04# There is no manual entry for hole

    (insert obligatory Unix joke here)
    • pendrachken, on 02/12/2008, -0/+6More like

      me@server$: man hole
      me@server$: Bash: do you really want to look at the manual page for goatse? [Yes | No]
    • rootneg2, on 02/12/2008, -1/+5why did the linux cross the road?

      to wget to the other side!

      /badjoke
    • mrynit, on 02/14/2008, -0/+1me@here:~$ man women
      No manual entry for women
  • childprey, on 02/11/2008, -2/+7dugg for using xfce
    • jmichaelx, on 02/12/2008, -0/+0Dugg again for using Xfce, though some are trying erroneously to maintain that this is Gnome.
  • montereymedia, on 02/11/2008, -3/+1wow....not worth my time. Next episode includes what happens when you smash your tower with a bat while Linux is running ! !
  • nimish, on 02/11/2008, -7/+1:(){:|:&};:

    Run in terminal to waste some time.
  • bobthegreat1224, on 02/11/2008, -1/+3Did this once in Suse 10, the last output on the command line was "And now off into". I love Linux guys' sense of humor.
  • ultra_lime, on 02/11/2008, -7/+2this command does not an
  • damawa42, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0"Added: December 24, 2007"
    Looks like someone was hoping for a new distro from Santa Claus.
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