Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!eecs.nwu.edu!phil From: phil@eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: comp.sys.encore Subject: Burned by Encore: /etc/format Message-ID: <1991Mar5.010514.4544@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> Date: 5 Mar 91 01:05:14 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mr. News) Reply-To: phil@eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Northwestern University Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: pex.eecs.nwu.edu I have just been burned big-time by a combination of things including (1) my own stupidity and haste, (2) Encore's poor software, and (3) an unfortuante clash of names between Encore and Sun. When one looks at UMAX 4.3, one sees how carefully Encore tried to make it look just like SunOS. They use /var. They have an "NFS" option. They support YP (or at least claim to). They have /etc/netgroups. It was really unfortunate that there was one thing they DIDN'T emulate Sun on: the name of the disk utility program. Granted, the name "format" on the Sun's is misleading at best, and turns out to do a whole lot more than format. BUT, the program /usr/etc/format on UMAX does one thing and one thing only: format the disk. I am now running restore on one of our largest partitions. Why? Because I was trying to find the physical geometry characteristics of that disk, and I tried to do it by running "format". Poor choice of name. Now on every other system in the world (even DEC systems!), the formatting utility asks you at least once (if not three times) if you are sure that you want to do this. But on this hunk of silicon the format utility just blindly does its job. And I mean blindly! Does it check to see if maybe this disk has mounted partitions? Of course not? Does it do a last second operator-sanity check before engaging in such a destructive act? Of course not. "YOU typed it, so YOU have to suffer the consequences!" And I am. I am MAD at Encore and I am MAD at myself. How could they have done something so stupid!? How could I have done something so stupid!? Comments? William LeFebvre Computing Facilities Manager and Analyst Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Northwestern University