How a Misguided Script Turned a Student’s Unix Experience into Chaos
- Miles began his computing experience with the Commodore C64 and DOS.
- One notable product from NeXT was the Cube, a powerful workstation.
- It operated at 25 MHz and had an impressive graphical user interface (GUI).
A Student’s Computing Journey with NeXT Cubes
Miles began his computing experience with the Commodore C64 and DOS. When he started university, he chose to explore NeXT Cubes instead of Macs or PC clones.
NeXT was founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple. One notable product from NeXT was the Cube, a powerful workstation. Tim Berners-Lee is said to have used a NeXT Cube to help create the World Wide Web.
Miles found the Cube exciting. It operated at 25 MHz and had an impressive graphical user interface (GUI). For someone who preferred command-line operations, it allowed remote access through Telnet. This feature let him work seamlessly in a BSD Unix environment.
Eager to learn, Miles quickly adapted to this new setup. He enjoyed using the tcsh shell and connected to the Cubes from his dorm room. He could type papers using LaTeX in the Emacs text editor and access printers in the lab, ensuring his work was professional.
However, he faced a challenge with Emacs saving backup files in unexpected spots. With a cluttered directory, Miles decided to tidy things up using Unix commands. He learned about the .logout script, which runs automatically when a user logs out. He intended to use this to delete unnecessary backup files.
Confident in his Unix skills, Miles wrote a command in the script: rm -rf ~*. This command aimed to erase files in his home directory. Unfortunately, it ended up deleting files in every user’s home directory.
The campus system administrator noticed this issue when the log-out process took longer than usual. The sysadmin discovered that Miles had greater permissions than he should have. Thankfully, the sysadmin had backups and restored the lost files.
After this incident, the sysadmin adjusted file permissions. Miles learned a valuable lesson. He kept his account after a warning and eventually worked as a sysadmin managing AS/400 systems.
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