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SystemD Mounts EFI pseudo-fs RW, Facilitates Permanently Bricking Laptops, Closes Bug Invalid

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the why-oh-why dept.

linuxrocks123 writes:

A number of users have reported that running "rm --no-preserve-root -rf /" not only deletes all their files (as expected), but also permanently bricks their computers (which is not). Tracing the issue revealed that the ultimate cause was that SystemD mounted the EFI pseudo-fs as read-write even when this FS was not listed in fstab, and deleting certain files in this pseudo-fs causes certain buggy, but very common, firmware not to POST anymore. A user reported this bug on SystemD's GitHub issue tracker, asking that the FS be mounted read-only instead of read-write, and said bug was immediately closed as invalid. The comment thread for the bug was locked shortly after. Discuss.

Links:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2402
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/01/running-a-single-delete-command-can-permanently-brick-laptops-from-inside-linux/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:47AM (#301155)

    I've only ever did a rm -rf / for shitsngiggles. If I'm reinstalling I'm reformatting.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hash14 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:51AM

    by hash14 (1102) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:51AM (#301157)

    rm -rf "$STEAMROOT/"*

    https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 [github.com]

    Mistakes are very easy to make.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:47AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:47AM (#301206) Journal

    I did it once by accident about 10 years ago -- more precisely, I did an rm -rf * after accidentally cd-ing to / rather than to where I wanted to go, as root of course. Yeah I know. Back then, all it meant was a reinstall which aside from being hassle wasn't the end of the world.

    I get that MSI screwed up their EFI implementation, but it's a known issue and to absolutely refuse to make a software package safely handle known issues is just weird in the extreme. Aside from compatibility lists, do we now need lists of hardware that "linux" (for this is how it will be perceived) won't destroy merely by use?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:40AM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:40AM (#301230) Journal

      "do we now need lists of hardware that "linux" (for this is how it will be perceived) won't destroy merely by use?" And THAT is why its a SystemD bug, because of this (frankly retarded, there should be NO REASON to mount it unless you are expressly altering it) bug you've just created a situation where OEMs have a legitimate reason to put on their hardware "Linux is NOT recommended and can in fact break this hardware and will void your warranty" and will be perfectly justified in doing so.

      Remember folks a good experience? Gets told to a couple people at most, a bad experience? Gets told to a dozen or more. Of course Larry Pooter and his Masters at Red Hat really do not give a flipping flying fuck what YOU think, you filthy peasants, all they care about is fortune 50 "cloud" customers. Hell read old Larry's postings sometime, he really makes it quite clear what he believes the "future of Linux" is gonna be an the vast majority of Linux users? Would probably feel more at home on windows than on what he and his bosses have in mind which is Linux as nothing but a VM on a SystemD hypervisior, a second class citizen on its own fricking platform!

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:49AM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:49AM (#301232) Journal

    I've only ever did a rm -rf / for shitsngigglesy

    As do probably 80% of all Linux starters at least ones or twice, for exactly the same reason. Linux was not only a great operating system, but also a great learning experience once. It invited to try things, to tinker around, to break things, and at least for the past 10 years to always be able to just start from scratch easily, because setting up a new system is a matter of minutes,

    Now I have to tell my son to never try anything without spending hours on reading documentation for potential risks?

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum

    • (Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:00PM

      by mrchew1982 (3565) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:00PM (#301549)

      No, he just has to learn how to tear apart the system and reflash the chip using a jtag adapter... ;-)

      • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday February 09 2016, @08:12PM

        by q.kontinuum (532) on Tuesday February 09 2016, @08:12PM (#301641) Journal

        And that would work without

        without spending hours on reading documentation for potential risks

        ? I'm not sure I buy that...

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        Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum