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Was asked to uninstall IBM/Rational ClearCase from our source code repository server. Apparently at the time, Clearcase's installer NFS mounted 127.0.0.1:/ to

Was asked to uninstall IBM/Rational ClearCase from our source code repository server. Apparently at the time, Clearcase's installer NFS mounted 127.0.0.1:/ to a subdirectory. Don't ask me what brain-dead system designer thought this was a good idea. So, I did a simple /etc/init.d/clearcase stop (not sure that is the exact name) and: # rm -rf /opt/clearcase (hmm... that seems to be taking a little too long to run) Panic - then ctrl-C - it was too late, /opt/clearcase/foo was NFS mounted 127.0.0.1:/ and it had already trashed /bin, /sbin, /etc, /var, and most of /usr. Luckily I had good backups, but we did spend the rest of the day rebuilding the source repository while the developers couldn't check in any code.

CGamesPlay 15y ago
I've also done this, but it was a cPanel server and the jailshell did bind mounts to various directories on the system. I tried to remove the jailshell instance, and ended up removing a whole lot more.
- endgame 15y ago
  Not useful in your case, but I've made a habit of using rmdir when removing directories that I think might be mounted.
mst 15y ago
One of my first tasks after being given root access at my first n?x job at an ISP was "clear off all of the DNS stuff on $main_server since we have $dedicated_dns_server now". So I merrily started mv-ing things to a scratch directory that we could wipe in 6 months if we didn't need anything from it. Unfortunately, the zone file directory was NFS mounted from* $dedicated_dns_server. With pass root set. I think I took all of A through to K of client zones offline before we noticed. I'm just very very glad I decided to do it as an mv rather than an rm, since it meant all I needed to do was copy things back. Not that I really learned my lesson that time; it took a couple more semi-disasters before I got sufficiently paranoid to be reasonably safe as root.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Too late now, but remember to escape your asterices.

CGamesPlay 15y ago

I've also done this, but it was a cPanel server and the jailshell did bind mounts to various directories on the system. I tried to remove the jailshell instance, and ended up removing a whole lot more.

endgame 15y ago
Not useful in your case, but I've made a habit of using rmdir when removing directories that I think might be mounted.

mst 15y ago

One of my first tasks after being given root access at my first n?x job at an ISP was "clear off all of the DNS stuff on $main_server since we have $dedicated_dns_server now". So I merrily started mv-ing things to a scratch directory that we could wipe in 6 months if we didn't need anything from it. Unfortunately, the zone file directory was NFS mounted from* $dedicated_dns_server. With pass root set. I think I took all of A through to K of client zones offline before we noticed. I'm just very very glad I decided to do it as an mv rather than an rm, since it meant all I needed to do was copy things back. Not that I really learned my lesson that time; it took a couple more semi-disasters before I got sufficiently paranoid to be reasonably safe as root.

redthrowaway 15y ago
Too late now, but remember to escape your asterices.