4 ms·

What if you hit rm -rf * and that gets synched? I don't mean to be rude, I don't know anything about you, but if you were a system administrator working for me

by spolsky 17y ago

What if you hit rm -rf * and that gets synched? I don't mean to be rude, I don't know anything about you, but if you were a system administrator working for me, today would be your last day.

jawngee 17y ago
Of course it would be his last day, he's a sysadmin and he just typed rm -rf * on /
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  You know, you tell yourself that you understand rm -rf. And yet somehow you always find a way to type it on something you shouldn't. Computers are perverse objects. It's like reading an airline crash report, which I'm told often ends up sounding like a comedy of errors. Most airline crashes have an entire handful of causes, all of which are individually innocent, but on the one extremely rare occasion when they all happen at the same time they add up to disaster.
  - ajross 17y ago
    I fat-fingered the destination directory in a script once and accidentally shrunk my entire photo archive to 128x128 thumbnails. Thankfully I did have backups of all but a handful. I'm always amazed at the number of people who spend their time thinking about replication strategies without understanding that data can be accidentally deleted in production too. I guess backups look "easy", so it's not as sexy an area of architecture planning.
    - pyre 17y ago
      People just don't always grasp the big picture. People that see RAID as a backup strategy are only looking at 'hard drive failure' as potential scenario. The same for machine replication. They are only trying to prevent against what happens if 'the machine dies.' As long as they realize that this doesn't protect against, "I accidentally deleted the files," then it's all good.
      - mechanical_fish 17y ago
        In a previous job I had a so-called system administrator laugh at my paranoia when I suggested that his awesome backup system -- protecting the equivalent of several dozen person-years of scientific data, millions of dollars' worth -- wouldn't protect us against a fire in the building. Or, for that matter, a thief who liked to steal computer hardware. Job security note for sysadmins: When someone suggests a disaster scenario, don't open your response with a laugh.
        pyre 17y ago
        Well, you know that you're talking to someone that doesn't plan for the future when, "What happens if the building burns down?" is responded to with, "You're just being paranoid." I guess the appropriate response would be to point out that using his logic tons of taxpayer money could be saved by nixing the fire departments (and tons of corporate money could be saved by not paying for fire protection -- alarms, detectors, escapes, etc).

by spolsky 17y ago

What if you hit rm -rf * and that gets synched? I don't mean to be rude, I don't know anything about you, but if you were a system administrator working for me, today would be your last day.

jawngee 17y ago

Of course it would be his last day, he's a sysadmin and he just typed rm -rf * on /

mechanical_fish 17y ago
You know, you tell yourself that you understand rm -rf. And yet somehow you always find a way to type it on something you shouldn't. Computers are perverse objects. It's like reading an airline crash report, which I'm told often ends up sounding like a comedy of errors. Most airline crashes have an entire handful of causes, all of which are individually innocent, but on the one extremely rare occasion when they all happen at the same time they add up to disaster.
- ajross 17y ago
  I fat-fingered the destination directory in a script once and accidentally shrunk my entire photo archive to 128x128 thumbnails. Thankfully I did have backups of all but a handful. I'm always amazed at the number of people who spend their time thinking about replication strategies without understanding that data can be accidentally deleted in production too. I guess backups look "easy", so it's not as sexy an area of architecture planning.
  - pyre 17y ago
    People just don't always grasp the big picture. People that see RAID as a backup strategy are only looking at 'hard drive failure' as potential scenario. The same for machine replication. They are only trying to prevent against what happens if 'the machine dies.' As long as they realize that this doesn't protect against, "I accidentally deleted the files," then it's all good.
    - mechanical_fish 17y ago
      In a previous job I had a so-called system administrator laugh at my paranoia when I suggested that his awesome backup system -- protecting the equivalent of several dozen person-years of scientific data, millions of dollars' worth -- wouldn't protect us against a fire in the building. Or, for that matter, a thief who liked to steal computer hardware. Job security note for sysadmins: When someone suggests a disaster scenario, don't open your response with a laugh.
      - pyre 17y ago
        Well, you know that you're talking to someone that doesn't plan for the future when, "What happens if the building burns down?" is responded to with, "You're just being paranoid." I guess the appropriate response would be to point out that using his logic tons of taxpayer money could be saved by nixing the fire departments (and tons of corporate money could be saved by not paying for fire protection -- alarms, detectors, escapes, etc).