Re: rm(1) bug, possibly serious

On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 05:12:50PM +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote:
Hi,

Today I noticed the following behaviour on a 6-stable
machine:

$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir -p foo/var
$ cd foo/bar

Looks like you have mistyped 'mkdir' argument :)

$ rm -rf ../
rm: ../: Invalid argument

Please type 'pwd' here

$ rm -rf ../
$

Note that the command "rm -rf ../" was entered twice.
The first time I got an error message (and exit code 1),
the second time it apparently succeeded. The very same
command.

Further investigation:

$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir -p foo/var
$ cd foo/bar
$ rm -rf ../
rm: ../: Invalid argument
$ ls -al ..
ls: ..: No such file or directory
$ ls /tmp/foo/bar
ls: /tmp/foo/bar: No such file or directory

That means: Even though "rm -rf ../" prints an error
message, indicating that the argument is invalid, it
*DOES* remove the contents of the parent directory!

To add further confusion, another "rm -rf ../" does
not print an error message and seemingly succeeds,
even though ".." does not exist anymore in the current
directory (which has been removed).

Shall I file a PR? Or is rm working correctly, and
my assumptions are wrong?

Best regards
Oliver

--
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Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, GeschДftsfuehrung:
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"The scanf() function is a large and complex beast that often does
something almost but not quite entirely unlike what you desired."
-- Chris Torek

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The ultimate artifact may be found in the driven snow...
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