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

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From: Collin Funk <collin.funk1 <at> gmail.com>
To: Doctorixx <jebpip2008 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 79218 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#79218: BUG: sudo rm -rf /* removes without --no-preserve-root
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:53:06 -0700

Hi,

Doctorixx <jebpip2008 <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 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.

The 'rm' command does not handle /* since globbing is handled by the
shell. So 'rm' has no way of knowing it is passed /*, it just sees file
names passed to the command-line. Here is an example:

    $ cat main.c 
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    int
    main (int argc, char **argv)
    {
      for (int i = 1; i < argc; ++i)
        printf ("%s\n", argv[i]);
      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
    }
    $ gcc main.c
    $ ./a.out /*
    /afs
    /bin
    /boot
    /dev
    /etc
    /home
    [...]

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