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Transcript

7 panel comic

1: [2 guys, both in fur lined coats, one wearing a fur-lined hat, the other with crazy hair, sit in circular booth in a rundown bar. 2 empty shot glasses and a bottle are visible on the table.]

Hat: Stop it, you’re crazy! This isn’t you talking, it’s the vodka!

Hair: Leave it…

2: [The two men are sitting across from a third man in a similar fur-line coat and hat, but glasses and a beard. A laptop sits in front of the bearded man.]

Beard: It’s not a game for cowards…

3: [Hair pulls the laptop towards him. Hat looks worried]

Hair: Come on, gimme that and let’s get it over with!

4: [Hair has a crazy and excited look on his face]

Hair: Each one on his own prod server?

Beard: Each one on his own prod server.

5: [Close up of Hats finger clicking the touch pad]

6: [Close up of the sweat dripping down Hats face]

7: [A terminal is open on the laptop screen] Laptop reads: root@server:~# [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo “Lucky boy”;

    • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      9·
      9 hours ago

      On modern Linux system yes but old Unix servers (or even recent?) would run it no problem

      Edit: It was initally introduced by sun microsystems in 2005 and was later adopted by GNU

      Sun Microsystem didn’t introduce it in 2005, rather it simply disallowed rm -rf / altogether

      Later GNU introduced --preserve-root and after that made --preserve-root the default and added --no-preserve-root https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm_(Unix)

    • DaGeek247@fedia.io
      102·
      20 hours ago

      And also a short delay before printing ‘lucky boy’ so you can’t tell if it’s deleting everything or if it’s the built in delay.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        8·
        8 hours ago

        Oh I do remember that sickening feeling when an rm doesn’t come back immediately –_—

        • froh42@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 hours ago

          I still remember when I managed to rm -rf / foo (I accidentally typed a space between / and foo) on my very early linux box on the 90s. 80486, 16 mb

          I pressed enter. Saw what I did. Remembered that sync ran at every 30s* Pressed the power button.

          *= those were simple times, but not better times

          So I rm -rf ed my root fs and my box survived it due to the quick power off.

    • GargleBlaster@feddit.org
      113·
      22 hours ago

      In my limited knowledge it randomly generates a number and if this number can be cleanly divided by 6 it deletes everything on the system (and the system itself). If not it prints ‘lucky boy’.

      So basically the nerd version of russian Roulette. But with higher stakes

      • Albbi@piefed.caEnglish
        30·
        18 hours ago

        But with higher stakes

        I see you haven’t been converted to believe in the afterlife. Restoring from backup.

        • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
          20·
          17 hours ago

          If the backup is on the same device, it’s not a backup, and if you’ve not tested it on a clean machine, it’s not a backup.

          • Smoogs@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            14 hours ago

            scuz me ill just grab this timeshift thumbdrive for this opportunity.

            …amateurs.

          • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
            1·
            12 hours ago

            Also, if you’re not willing to actually use it to restore from backup, it’s not a backup. I remember once I fucked up surgery on the prod db (we didn’t have a testing db…) and was like, ok well at least we can just try again.

            Boss man was like “no! We can’t restore from backup, people will lose 1 hour of their work!!!” I spent 7 days writing a script to surgically fix my surgery instead. I had to fudge and guess some of the data but wcyd

    • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
      50·
      22 hours ago

      It’s a bash command that generates a random number. If that number divides by six with no remainder then it deletes everything on the server, if not it prints “lucky boy”. “Prod” servers are production servers, the ones the actual business runs on, as opposed to test or dev servers which are often deleted and rebuilt as developers to see if things work or not.

      This is Russian roulette for IT people to see if they destroy the running server or not

      • SatyrSack@quokk.auEnglish
        25·
        15 hours ago

        generates a random number. If that number divides by six with no remainder

        Meaning a 1 in 6 chance, just like playing traditional Russian roulette with a revolver

        EDIT: For fun, here is a Russian roulette bash script that doesn’t actually do anything other than simply print pass or fail with a 1 in 6 chance:

        [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && echo fail || echo pass;
    • tired_fedora@lemmy.ml
      10·
      22 hours ago

      They’re basically playing Russian Roulette with their servers. They condition a remove all command on a random numbers generator and pray. If it does not wipe the server, it spits out “Lucky Boy”

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    26·
    22 hours ago

    1. I’d hope that one’s production server is backed up.

    2. $ alias rm="echo Lucky boy"; clear

      “Okay, ready to play.”