Re: bash 3.2.39 -- race condition

[Chet Ramey]

Douglas Moyes wrote:
> I nearly brought down a server today.
> 
> # alias d="perl-script "
> ....
> 
> # d() {
> # perl-script $1 |grep something|cut -d ' ' -f 3
> # }
> # d something
> ..... ..... .... CRASH
> 
> turns out bash went into a loop calling d over and over again, which
> resulted in thousands of grep, bash, and -d processes being executed. It
> wasn't pretty.

You defined `perl-script' as a recursive function (alias expansion is
performed when a function is defined) and called it.  I'm not surprised
at the result.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/