Urban Dictionary: rm -rf /

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Finest compression avaliable under UNIX/Linux! Unfortunatly, there is no decompressor avaliable.

Command issued on unix systems to remove a directory. If nothing is added after the final slash (/) it will remove the root filesystem. Although, many systems now have protection in place which will report back and say 'rm of / is not allowed' or similar. The command can only be issued by the root user. If you do it as a normal user, it will only remove your home directory and files you have write/execute access to.

Friend 1: My hard disk is full.
Friend 2: Type 'rm -rf /'. Its the best compression avaliable *evil-grin*.
Friend 1: Its doing it now, the hard disk is running.

by Keld July 14, 2005

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rm -rf /

rm = remove
-f = all files whether write protected or not without prompting the user for confirmation or writing a message to the console about the file removal.
-r is recursive, which means to repeatedly remove all files until the base case is the only thing left.

There is a whole directory of files you no longer need on your UNIX system. You do not want to remove them one at a time. Use rm -rf/ to remove them all at once.

by frederick eccher jr November 03, 2004