The safety expansion for FreeBSD rm(1)

cpghost cpghost at cordula.ws
Tue Sep 25 10:36:24 PDT 2007


On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:58:37 +0900
Daichi GOTO <daichi at freebsd.org> wrote:

> Today is not unionfs. Introduction for safety expansion of rm(1).
> I know that some unix folks have a experience that you remove some
> files or directories accidentally. Yes, me too. LoL
> 
> Have you any dreams that rm(1) autonomously judges target should
> be remove or not?  To complexify system base command is objectionable
> behavior but adding some little and simple mechanism to prevent a
> issue is acceptable I suppose.
> 
> We have created safety expansion for rm(1). If you have any interests,
> please try follow patch.
> 
>    http://people.freebsd.org/~daichi/safety-rm/
> 
> Thanks :)

Interesting idea, but isn't that a violation of POLA? Imagine an
unsuspecting sysadmin trying to rm something, and forgetting
or not knowing about ~/.rm?

Isn't it better to protect important system directories with
something like:
  # chflags sunlink /path/to/dir
and unprotect them with
  # chflags nosunlink /path/to/dir
to avoid mistakes?

Thanks,
-cpghost.

-- 
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