GNU bug report logs - #79218
BUG: sudo rm -rf /* removes without --no-preserve-root

Previous Next

Full log

Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Doctorixx <jebpip2008 <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: BUG: sudo rm -rf /* removes without --no-preserve-root
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:16:04 +0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello coreutils maintainers,

I noticed a potentially dangerous difference in how rm handles the / and /*
patterns.

Currently:

$ sudo rm -rf /
rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'
rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe

This prevents accidental deletion of the root directory.

However:

$ sudo rm -rf /*

This command will proceed to remove the contents of /, effectively
destroying the system, without any warning.

While this is technically correct according to shell expansion rules, it
may be surprising for some users. People might assume /* is just as
protected as /, but the safeguard doesn’t apply.

P.S.: I removed root(

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.