I accidentally untarred archive intended to be extracted in root directory, which among others included some files for /etc directory.
I went on to rm -rv ~/etc, but I quickly typed rm -rv /etc instead, and hit enter, while using a root account.

  • ThanksForAllTheFish@sh.itjust.works
    24·
    1 month ago

    Could make one archive intended to be unpacked from /etc/ and one archive that’s intended to be unpacked from /home/Alice/ , that way they wouldn’t need to be root for the user bit, and there would never be an etc directory to delete. And if they run tar test (t) and pwd first, they could check the intended actions were correct before running the full tar. Some tools can be dangerous, so the user should be aware, and have safety measures.

    • neatchee@piefed.socialEnglish
      11·
      1 month ago

      they acquired a tar package from somewhere else. the instructions said to extract it to the root directory (because of its file structure). they accidentally extracted it to their home dir

      that is how this happened. not anything like what you were saying

      • ThanksForAllTheFish@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 month ago

        I understand that they were intending to unpack from / and they unpacked from /home/ instead. I’m just arguing that the unpack was already a potentially dangerous action, especially if it had the potential to overwrite any system file on the drive. For this reason it would make sense to have some way of checking it was correct before running it.

        I’m suggesting 3 things:

        • Confirm the contents of the tar
        • Confirm where you want to extract the contents
        • Have backups in case this goes wrong somehow

        Check the contents:

        • use "tar t’’ to print the contents before extracting, read the output and check you are happy with it

        Confirm where:

        • run pwd first, or specify “-C ‘/output-place/’” during extraction, to prevent output to the wrong folder

        Have backups:

        • Assume this potentially dangerous process of extracting to /etc may break some critical files there, so make sure this directory is properly backed up first, and check these backups are current.

        I’m not suggesting that everyone knows they should do this. But I’m saying that it’s only avoidable by being extra careful. And with experience people build a knowledge of what may be dangerous and how to prevent that danger.