Subject: Re: pkg_add just toasted my entire home directory
To: Hubert Feyrer <feyrer@rfhs8012.fh-regensburg.de>
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com>
List: current-users
Date: 10/11/1998 08:32:37
On Sun, 11 Oct 1998, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
>-current pkg_add has some hooks to prevent this. Can you tell me what
>version of pkg_add you 're running: ident `which pkg_add`

  Here's the ident output:
/usr/sbin/pkg_add:
     $NetBSD: crt0.c,v 1.23 1997/10/20 16:08:28 christos Exp $
     $NetBSD: main.c,v 1.4 1997/10/17 14:53:37 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: perform.c,v 1.8 1997/10/18 11:05:38 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: futil.c,v 1.5 1997/10/18 11:05:34 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: extract.c,v 1.7 1997/10/19 09:39:35 mrg Exp $
     $NetBSD: plist.c,v 1.6 1997/10/18 11:06:02 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: str.c,v 1.5 1997/10/18 11:06:07 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: file.c,v 1.8 1997/10/19 09:39:48 mrg Exp $
     $NetBSD: ftpio.c,v 1.4 1997/10/18 11:05:56 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: pen.c,v 1.5 1997/10/19 09:39:53 mrg Exp $
     $NetBSD: msg.c,v 1.4 1997/10/17 14:54:41 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: global.c,v 1.4 1997/10/17 14:54:35 lukem Exp $
     $NetBSD: exec.c,v 1.4 1997/10/17 14:54:26 lukem Exp $

>Where was your home partition mounted that got toasted? Was it all the 
>partition or only one sub-dir? 

  I was in /home/mcguire, which is NFS mounted from a fileserver (also
NetBSD/sparc).  It left me sitting in an empty /home/mcguire directory...every
single file gone.  It about scared the crap out of me.  The only reason I
noticed it was the activity light on the hub under my desk was on solid for a
while...I was leaning back reading something and caught it out of the corner of
my eye. :)

  I got VERY lucky tonight.  My backup run that I thought failed last week
actually ran after all, and got a level 0 last sunday night.  So I'm 5.5 days
behind, not a lifetime behind. :)  I'm thanking my lucky stars, and my exabyte!

                                  -Dave McGuire