He wiped out his entire business with a code mistake

This story comes just in time to prove once again how important a good backup is. What is it about?

A hosting provider named Marco Marsala accidentally deleted everything he had stored on his servers – both his own data and his clients' websites.
The problem has become public after Marsala sought advice on a forum for server experts, where he wrote that he had run destructive code that erased his data.
Responses received: "„You went out of business.”" "„You don't need technical advice, you need a lawyer.”"”

The disaster was caused by the command "„rm -rf„": 

“rm” asks the computer to delete files.

„"„r”"deletes everything in a specific folder.".

„"„f”" means "forced deletion", i.e. ignoring the usual warnings in such situations.

Normally, the code above deletes everything it finds in certain parts of the computer, but in this case the command was not directed to a specific area of data, so it deleted everything it found on the computer. Including backups, which are on the same computer.

How do we avoid situations like this?

Double backup. Store your data on two different disks. If you lose one, you still have the other. The probability of losing both at the same time is too small, it would mean being particularly unlucky.

Backup in separate places. The two disks should be in different places. Don't keep them in the same drawer or on the same server, because you can spill coffee/beer/juice right there. Not to mention fire, lightning, or meteorites.

Offline backup. Make sure that at least one of the backup disks is offline. This way, no commands like rm -rf He can't reach him, no matter how he calls you.

Header photo: Ryan McGuire via.