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Old 02-12-2011, 04:48 AM   #1
prakashsince92
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Registered: Jan 2010
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick
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Bash Command output


What does the following Shell program do ??

: () { :| : &} ; :


Warning: My computer got hung when i tried to execute this.

Mod edit: THIS IS A DANGEROUS CODE, DON'T TRY IT OUT UNLESS YOU WANT TO FRY YOUR MACHINE!

Last edited by colucix; 02-12-2011 at 05:10 AM.
 
Old 02-12-2011, 05:09 AM   #2
colucix
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This a so called fork bomb. It's very dangerous since - as you already pointed out - it eagerly eats your resources and causes a machine to hang until you forcibly restart the computer. Sometimes system administrators use fork bombs to test the system limitations.

Regarding the shell code, it is a recursive function whose name is : (colon) and it supersedes the null command. The function code inside brackets calls itself twice through a pipe and put the process in background so that the child process cannot terminate. The semicolon is the command separator and the last colon actually starts the treacherous process.

I take the freedom to edit your post to warn users about the danger even more.
 
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Old 02-12-2011, 05:59 AM   #3
prakashsince92
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Thank you !!
 
  


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