fault toleratant shell scripts

[Ward Griffiths]

On Tuesday 16 March 2004 12:36 am, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 12:30:52AM -0500, Ward Griffiths wrote:

> > /bin/rm (and /bin itself, naturally) would also remain.  Tested
> > that once on a store demo I was cleaning up for a fresh OS install
> > for a customer delivery -- did an rm -f * from / then mounted and
> > looked at the HD from a boot floppy just for grins.  Then I
> > formatted it.
>
> Wimp.
>
> *I* did it on a live system.
>
> 16B, Xenix 3, Real World.
>
> # cd /error/in/path/name
> cd: path not found
> # rm -rf .
> rm: you friggin' idiot
> ...
>
> Got it stopped after a couple *minutes*.  It ate a *lot* of stuff.
> But, amazingly, not so much that a) the users stopped being able to
> work or b) we were unable to back the data up and reload from the
> prior night and restore.
>
> I *was* on site until something like 0130...

As the CSR at an RSCC, I rarely had unrestricted access to a production 
environment.  And that was fine with me.  By the time I was personally 
responsible for real systems, I'd had plenty of education from 
customers' mistakes.  Yes, it _is_ possible to learn from the screw-ups 
of others if you're paying attention.
-- 
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net    http://home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd/

"And I don't like the idea of going _anywhere_ near the gods.  We're
like toys to them, you know."  _And they don't realise how easily the
arms and legs come off_, he added to himself.
                                Terry Pratchet, _The Last Hero_