<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/18/2015 07:49 PM, Michael Havens
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAFRvunK7UawtXYGGdO4e091GOF=iTAUuiq+VWmTvO68Q8DR1OQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">people are reporting a bug in steam. apparently
there is a line in it that is deleting all the personal data<span
style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px"> </span><span
style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px">all
connected read/write media.</span><br>
<div> this is how the line reads:</div>
<div>
<p
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px"><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;line-height:19.2000007629395px;background-color:rgb(247,247,247)"><br>
</span></p>
<p
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px"><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;line-height:19.2000007629395px;background-color:rgb(247,247,247)">rm
-rf $STEAMROOT/*</span></p>
<p
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px"><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;line-height:19.2000007629395px;background-color:rgb(247,247,247)"><br>
</span></p>
<p
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px"><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;line-height:19.2000007629395px;background-color:rgb(247,247,247)">what
does the '$' expand too?</span></p>
<div>
<div class="gmail_signature">:-)~MIKE~(-:</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org">PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org</a>
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss">http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss</a></pre>
</blockquote>
DON'T EXECUTE THE ABOVE LINE!<br>
I'm assuming you have a terminal to verify this:<br>
If the variable "STEAMROOT" is empty, it expands to the null string,
i.e. empty string.<br>
i.e. /* which is very bad if preceded by rm -rf because "r" is
recursive and "f" means<br>
to force the execution of the remove and it will remove all your
files.<br>
If it is <someString> then it expands to
<someString>/*<br>
it is supposed to expand to the path for the home directory for the
steam data<br>
but if empty, wipes out any part of file system in which the bash
script is <br>
executing and for which bash has permissions.<br>
$STEAMROOT should be set to some harmless default value like /tmp<br>
If the bash line is set to <br>
rm -rf ${STEAMROOT:-/tmp}/*<br>
then there shouldn't be any unwanted damage. Check out<br>
man rm<br>
and<br>
man bash<br>
for more than you wanted to know. Search ("/") for "${" in man bash
for details.<br>
Jon<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>