*BSD News Article 92803


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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