this is what disaster looks like

sneakyimp

Mucking around as root and accidentally pasting your javadoc comment into the terminal window on the client's server can get you in a world of trouble. I wouldn't recommend it.

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linux_disaster.jpg

bradgrafelman

sneakyimp;11011993 wrote:
Mucking around as root

You already lost my vote of confidence right there. 😉

(But seriously, though, why on earth were you logged in as root? I like to limit myself to using non-interactive `sudo' commands to protect myself... mostly because I don't trust myself. :p)

Weedpacket

obxkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/1084/

traq

advice: don't copy+paste in the terminal.

dalecosp

traq;11012035 wrote:
advice: don't copy+paste in the terminal.

Well, not while logged in as root, anyway. Or, perhaps more apropos ... always keep a separate GUI editor open with the text you INTEND to paste available, and double-check the contents of your memory buffer by pasting into it prior to pasting in the terminal ...

sneakyimp

I was logged in as root for reasons which seemed convenient at the time: weird file permissions, the need to change ownership of various files, etc. In retrospect, I should have gone through the "trouble" of using FTP.

As for the code-on-the-clipboard accident, I would advise just blanking your clipboard when using the terminal window (i.e., copy some trivial text). I did not mean to paste the clipboard contents. It was the opening /**\n of the javadoc-style comment on my clipboard and the proximity of ctrl-v to shift-v that caused the disaster. sigh.

I would also advise playing with disaster scenarios to evaluate your recovery scheme. It's probably not as good as you'd like.

sneakyimp

Weedpacket;11012001 wrote:
obxkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/1084/

You know, I had seen that comic and sort of understood it. Now it is abundantly clear. Love that comic.

bradgrafelman

sneakyimp;11012221 wrote:
reasons which seemed convenient at the time: weird file permissions, the need to change ownership of various files, etc.

Right, but that doesn't mean every single command you executed needed to be elevated, which is why I personally instead would've used sudo as necessary.

Reason being is I've accidentally done exactly what you described - had a large amount of text (with line breaks) on my clipboard and accidentally right-clicked (paste). Fortunately, I had decided against doing an 'sudo -i' for one reason or another, although it certainly left a right mess in my home directory.

sneakyimp

The more I think about it, the more I believe that were I not logged in and were forced to use sudo that it wouldn't actually have prevented the problem. I had executed several file ownership changes in a row already and my password would have still been in effect for the disaster command too.

Even so, I am utterly chastised and most contrite about the situation.