My knowledge about useful/funny /dev files grows by the day...
I now know of: random & urandom, null, zero and now full...
Bouta make an infinity gauntlet meme of them
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
157 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
47559 readers
673 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Wait until you learn about the shell specific /dev "files" like /dev/udp and /dev/tcp (which can send/recv IP traffic as if from a file)!
I am deeply intrigued
DO IT, DO IT
Can I get /dev/full as a service? I'm already paying a premium subscription for /dev/null as a service
The shell script available for download in the Code section is just pure evil!
The whole website is hilarious. That code finds a random file and deletes it with sudo. I'm gonna run it on a VM :)
sudo rm -rf "$(sudo find / -type f -print0 | shuf -n1 -z)"
edit: nothing bad happened. VM still works fine. gonna run it a few dozen times more and see. or put in a while loop, or a cron job every 5 seconds. lol. I wonder how long it will take for it to delete something important.
I had a good laugh, thanks for sharing :)
I learned something new. Thanks.
Maybe I can finally get my pull merged for /dev/grohl which just outputs random Foo Fighters lyrics.
So do you change your scripts to write to that to test what happens if a write didn't occur?
Yeah, could be used for that. Might not make too much sense in scripts, but definitely a good test for more complex programs that should handle the error instead of just stoppings
I knew about /dev/null, but not /dev/full, that is good to know about thanks!
I NEVER knew this! That's awesome! Thank you! :-D
The bottom of that Wikipedia page has a reference to something else that sounded interesting called “/dev/mordor” in some Plan 9 OS fork called 9front. Sent me down a really interesting rabbit hole http://9front.org/
9front is a great rabbit hole. Plus, Plan9's mascot is Glenda, the rabbit.