There’s nothing specially destructive about dd. It’s just a program that opens a file, and if you tell it to open a device file and it’s got permission to write to it, it’ll write to it.
You can just as easily overwrite a disk’s contents with anything else that will open a file and write to it.
# cp /dev/urandom /dev/sda
will wipe your drive with random data in the same way that
mkfs.ntfs is the silent killer, other mkfs don’t allow writing over the root partition but summoning this kind of Windows magic will happily fuck up your shit.
I quadruple check and then I still don’t run it because I’m too nervous so I go and do something else instead and the item remains buried on my to-do list indefinitely.
Lol, as someone who tried a bunch of different distros, I used the dd command a lot without ever realizing what could go wrong with it. I must have used up all my luck with that though, because somehow I ended up on manjaro of all things.
They call it disk destroyer for a reason. You gotta alias that shit.
alias dd='echo Did you triple check which device you picked? Of course not, dipshit. Check again'Great advice. I rarely use dd, but when I do it always sends chills down my spine.
There’s nothing specially destructive about
dd. It’s just a program that opens a file, and if you tell it to open a device file and it’s got permission to write to it, it’ll write to it.You can just as easily overwrite a disk’s contents with anything else that will open a file and write to it.
will wipe your drive with random data in the same way that
will.
mkfs.ntfs is the silent killer, other mkfs don’t allow writing over the root partition but summoning this kind of Windows magic will happily fuck up your shit.
You’re technically right, but the way most people use dd ensures its like handling a loaded gun. How often do you cp /dev/sdwhy?
Hahahahah I need to do that lmao!!!
Surely double checked is enough
It’s not. Neither is triple checking. Notice how the alias doesn’t actually run
dd? That’s on purpose.I quadruple check and then I still don’t run it because I’m too nervous so I go and do something else instead and the item remains buried on my to-do list indefinitely.
Lol, as someone who tried a bunch of different distros, I used the dd command a lot without ever realizing what could go wrong with it. I must have used up all my luck with that though, because somehow I ended up on manjaro of all things.