I agree. I've done serious damage to my own server this way. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm completely capable of this. Unlike others, who are both more intelligent and more cautious. Down the path of the wild carded, recursive delete command lies DANGER. Having a little bit of knowledge is more dangerous, in most cases, than none at all. In Unix and in whitewater rafting.
Roy 


> On Oct 28, 2014, at 6:46 PM, Cary Gordon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Well you can do a lot of damage quickly using very short commands. Deleting
> the master boot record can be quite effective, but I will demure from
> giving specific examples.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Stuart Yeates <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> 
>>> -- Because you can delete everything on the system with a very short
>>> command.
>> 
>> This is actually a misconception.
>> 
>> The very short command doesn't delete everything on the system. The
>> integrity of files which are currently open (including things like the
>> kernel image, executable files for currently-running programs, etc) is
>> protected until they are closed (or the next reboot, whichever is first).
>> These files vanish from the directory structure on the filesystem but can
>> still be accessed by interacting with the running processes which have them
>> open (or /proc/ for the very desperate).
>> 
>> This is the POSIX alternative to the windows "That file is currently in
>> use" scenario and explains why, when a runaway log file fills up a disk,
>> you have to both delete the log file and restart the service to get the
>> disk back.
>> 
>> cheers
>> stuart
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cary Gordon
> The Cherry Hill Company
> http://chillco.com