<p>In a <a href="http://www.jokerbone.com/2005/10/04/kill-9-lecture-ii/">continuing reference series of unix newbie tricks</a>, apparently some of the oldest tricks in the book still work…</p>
<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span> and <span class="imblue">Sasha</span> are technicians under me at work. I’m fixing it at no charge to the client later this week. I was in a sales meeting during this exchange. </p>
<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span>: how do i check the amount of free space on a hard drive in unix<br />
Sasha: um
Sasha: shit
Ethan: come on
Sasha: I should know this
Ethan: you call yourself a h@x0r?
Sasha: no, I am just trying to remember how to
Sasha: df
Sasha: at a command prompt
Ethan: hahaha
Ethan: ok
Ethan: so how do i free up space
Ethan: what’s the spacemonger equivalent in unix
Ethan: oh wait
Ethan: unix doesn’t have useful utilities like that
Sasha: cd /
Sasha: rm -rf /*
Sasha: no, do not do that
Ethan: why
Sasha: trust me
Sasha: don’t do that 😛
Ethan: well what if i started
Ethan: and control C’d it
Sasha: then you will be re-installing unix on that machine
Ethan: ?
Sasha: that will do a recursive delete of everything on that machine
Ethan: dude
Ethan: i’ll kill you
Sasha: I told you not to
Ethan: 7 seconds later
Sasha: you are too fast on the draw
Sasha: tell me you did not do that
Ethan: oh man
Ethan: sad times
Sasha: wtf
Ethan: i did it for about 1 second
Sasha: we can only hope
Sasha: what machine?
Ethan: roflmao
Ethan: this is insane
Sasha: ?
Ethan: well i can’t log back into it
Ethan: a clients production spam filter server
Ethan: how do i make it so that email starts going to their exchange server
Sasha: um
Ethan: since this box is pwned
Ethan: it had run out of space
Ethan: 40 blocks free
Ethan: 100% used
Sasha: log into their router and change port 25
Sasha: and clear out /var
Sasha: /var is where mail and temp files are kept
Ethan: i can’t log into the spam assassin box anymore
Sasha: :banghead:
Ethan: tihs is why unix is bad
Sasha: the box will probably have to be rebuilt unless Grant can fix it
Ethan: non gui is bad
Sasha: yes
Sasha: yes
Sasha: and asking me advanced *nix questions is bad
Ethan: waiting 7 seconds after telling me to do the unix equivalent of format c: before telling me not to is bad
Sasha: I’m sorry I was typing slow
Sasha: (but if you know how to log into a unix box and know how to do an “ls” then you should realize that was a bad idea )
Ethan: ls is the only command i know
Ethan: well, ls
Ethan: uptime
Ethan: shutdown
Ethan: cd
Sasha: now you know 2 more
Sasha: df
Ethan: and man
Sasha: and rm (remove)
Ethan: i love how it doesn’t prompt you at all
Sasha: that’s where the -rf come in
Sasha: you were logged in as root?
Ethan: that’s the only way to do anything on there
Ethan: what’s the rf for
Sasha: recursive and -f: Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the file’s permissions. If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify the exit status to reflect an error. The -f option overrides any previous -i options.
Ethan: bastard
Ethan: I’ll kill you
Sasha: please tell me you are joking
Ethan: joking about what
Ethan: the killing
Sasha: no
Ethan: or that i did that command
Sasha: that you ran that command
Ethan: oh it ran alright
Ethan: for 1/2 a second
Ethan: apparently that was enough
Sasha: it can probably be fixed
Sasha: though if it was out of space, might be a good idea to rebuild anyway
Ethan: it may have just had a bunch of log files or somethign
<p><span class="imblue">Sasha</span>: get in touch with Grant yet?<br />
Ethan: no
Ethan: sent him a text message
Sasha: ok, cool
Sasha: remember: rm -rf /* is bad, mkay? it does NOT “Read Mail -Really Fast”
Ethan: hahahahahaha
Ethan: he got quite a laugh out of that
<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span>: never assume I know anything about unix/linux<br />
Sasha: lol, so you’re talking to Grant?
Ethan: i just did
Ethan: he thought it was funny
Sasha: and never assume I know what I’m talking about unix/linux
Sasha: 😃
Ethan: well hey we fixed their original issue
Ethan: of not being able to get email
Ethan: and we freed up drive space too as you pointed out