cat /directory shows a (somewhat messy) list of files in a directory (even removed files)

Matthew Dillon dillon at apollo.backplane.com
Sun Mar 26 10:37:55 PST 2006


:When you create some dir, create some files in it, then remove them
:and do a cat /path/to/that/dir you get a messed-up list of files along
:with the removed ones, in some situations this might be considered a
:security threat. The following script ilustrates what i mean:

    It's an artifact of the way UFS stores directories.  When you
    'rm' a file, the directory entry is simply marked invalid rather
    than destroyed.  The file's data is not destroyed either unless
    you overwrite it before deleting it (e.g. with rm -P).

						-Matt





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