Fun fact, rm -rf /* does not need --no-preserve-root. It will happily start as technically, according to the preserve root check, /* is not root as the target is not /
It’s slightly different. Your shell will see the /* and replace it with all the directories under /, e.g. /bin /dev /etc /home etc. So the actual command that runs is rm -rf /bin /dev /etc /home etc.
Fun fact, rm -rf /* does not need --no-preserve-root. It will happily start as technically, according to the preserve root check, /* is not root as the target is not /
It’s slightly different. Your shell will see the
/*
and replace it with all the directories under /, e.g./bin /dev /etc /home
etc. So the actual command that runs isrm -rf /bin /dev /etc /home
etc.