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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!vbcnet-west!garlic.com!news.scruz.net!kithrup.com!news.Stanford.EDU!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsout1.alt.net!news1.alt.net!news.aros.net!news.cs.utah.edu!news.cc.utah.edu!maruts!udplmc From: udplmc@FIX.TIN.DOMAIN (Lloyd M Caldwell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: find daily security Date: 4 Apr 1997 17:47:05 GMT Organization: University of Utah Computer Center Lines: 21 Message-ID: <5i3eqp$ppv$1@news.cc.utah.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: maruts.usi.utah.edu Summary: when is find ... rm -f ok? Keywords: security daily find rm X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:38466 if find .... -exec rm -f {} is dangerous, why is it ok cleaning up /var/rwho and /var/preserve with that command and not /tmp and /var/tmp? as far as I can tell, rm when given a symbolic link removes the link and not the destination. I attempted to kill my system with symbolic links to all sorts of files as root and never trashed any of the pointed at files. not being devious (can't figure out magic incantation) how would one fix the problem (without using that HUGE perl scripting thingy). Lloyd M Caldwell udplmc@usi.utah.edu