this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Very useful tip (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You also need the flag "--no-preserve-root".

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

No you don't.

rm -fr / requires the flag, but rm -fr /* does not.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think that is only if you pass /, I don't think the flag is required for /* which is what is shown here - if I remember right, it's because the * triggers the shell to expand the paths and that flag is only built to protect / (from say, having an empty variable alongside /).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Yes, the * is expanded by the shell so the rm command just sees lots of individual files being passed in