> shell# cat /dev/urandom > > can that executed as root cause any harm to the system? What > if a random > sequence of `rm *` was generated... would it be executed? >
the question is: WHAT FOR should someone logged in as root execute "cat /dev/urandom" without redirecting the output? anyway, from my experience of "trying" this a few times (it does not matter if on a local console or using a ssh-client) sometimes there's code left in the commandline afterwards and if you hit enter, it's executed... directly executed strings i've also seen. for now, i didn't have the occurrence of any system-command being generated, but that's random... the unlucky one would get it asap ;-) if you like to get RANDOM content anywhere use dd instead of cat. example to erase a whole disk i'd type: dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/<devicefile> bs=1024k be sure that the devicefile exists, or you'll fill up your /root fs. br... _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"