Re: kind souls around? (\rm -rf '/' - yikes!)

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Sunday 03 April 2005 08:36 pm, Bruno Hertz wrote:
> mfabache@yahoo.com writes:
> > I am in a bit of a bind and need some help.
> >
> > I did a \rm -rf / on my debian root!  (yikees!)
> >
> > I caught the mistake REALLY quick, however, not soon enough to stop it
> > from removing the /bin/ls, bin/mv, /bin/cp, /bin/rm...
> >
> > I am trying to re-add the fileutils pkg, but it bombs, mostly to not
> > being able to find the /bin/rm file.
> >
> > Can anytone point me to a ftp server where I can replace the critical
> > files that will allow me to read the fileutils+ packages? or send me
> > the debian-woody files (/bin/rm, /bin/mv, /bin/ls, /bin/cp, etc.)?
> >
> > Also, I am somewhat of a rookie.  If anyone knows a better idea, I
> > would appriecate that as well.
> >
> > I am in quite a bind ...
>
> Sorry, I don't have woody bins, but if you have the debs of the files
> you removed, just note that deb files are just ar archives (man ar).
>
> This means, you can unpack the debs first with ar -x your.deb (ar
> should still be available in /usr/bin), then the extracted data.tar.gz
> with tar -zxvf data.tar.gz . Especially, there's no need for dpkg and
> friends to get the content of debs.
>
> Regards, Bruno.

I missed the first part of this thread, so sorry for jumping in late.

I've got 2 ideas:

1) If you have a live CD, you can boot the live CD and copy from that /bin (or 
other dirs) to your hard drive.  (Or can you have a friend download a live CD 
like Knoppix for you, if you're having trouble on your system)?

2) I don't know the address, but there's a program called Busybox, which is 
used in distros and apps (LTSP is the only one I can think of immediately) 
that want to save space.  It's one file with a ton of functions and looks at 
the calling command line to see what it should do.  It includes a ton of 
functions like mv, cp, and a bunch of other basic commands.

I'm having trouble with accessing Google at the moment, but if I have time 
later, I'll see if I can find an ftp site for Busybox.

Hal