On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 18:33:44 +0100 Didier Kryn <[email protected]> wrote: > People have always expected rm -rf / to destroy the OS. They > also know that, from the keyboard, with root priviledge, they can > destroy the partition table of the disk. All this is repairable by > the admin her/himself. > > The ability to brick the motherboard is brand new.
Not only brand new, but an entirely new level of consequence. With excellent backups, rm -rf / or even dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 is correctable with a few hours of work, on the premises, with only resources on the premises. Bricking the mobo means buying a new mobo, and in all likelihood a whole computer. Unless the mobo is still being sold, this means a brand new hardware cost/benefit analysis. If you don't live near a good computer store, it could mean mail order, with the several days' shipping and the RMA nonsense, while your business languishes. I could see an rm -rf causing a business to be down for a couple weeks, complete with angry threats and counterthreats between business and computer vendor. Anybody who's ever had to buy a computer to fix a current outage, instead of as a planned process, knows you're going to get an inferior computer for an inflated price, and incur the kind of pressure that makes mistakes more probable. It's not a whole lot different than having to buy a car tonight because your old car blew up this afternoon and you'll get fired if you don't drive to work tomorrow. With a well backed up machine, there is absolutely no comparison between loss of the system disk formatting and bricking of the mobo. > Therefore > admins should be seriously protected and warned against this > eventuality, at least until it percolates into the general culture. Yes. SteveT Steve Litt February 2016 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list [email protected] https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
