Best practices to alias the rm command and make it safer

Question

Some time ago I erroneously deleted my home folder because I ran a rm -rf * on the wrong terminal, whose working directory was the home folder!

I wish I had an alias for the rm command, but it was not the case.

Now, I am planning to make a script as an alias for rm.

Do you have any best practice to suggest?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you want a customized rm, don't call it rm but a name of yours, myrm, delete or whatever.

The "rm=rm -i" alias is an horror because after a while using it, you will expect rm to prompt you by default before removing files. Of course, one day you'll run it with an account that hasn't that alias set and before you understand what's going on, it will be too late.

In any case, a good way to be prepared for file loss or corruption is doing backups.

A fast alternative that will protect you against accidental file deletion or overwriting is using a file system that support unlimited snapshots like ZFS. If frequent snapshots are done done automatically, you can recover the files at the state they were during the last snapshot before the incident.

Answer 2

Without having to change everyones profile, what you can do is place file called -i in the directory.

# touch -- -i
# ll
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users  0 Jan 26 19:24 files
drwxr-xr-x 2 root users 40 Jan 26 19:24 folder_of_power
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   0 Jan 26 19:25 -i
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users  0 Jan 26 19:24 important
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users  0 Jan 26 19:24 very
# rm -rf *
rm: remove regular empty file `files'? 

Answer 3

I suggest to disable rm like this

alias rm='echo "rm is disabled, use trash or /bin/rm instead."'

Then you can create your own safe alias, e.g.

alias remove='rm -irv'

or use trash instead.

Answer 4

In your profile,

alias rm="rm -i"

Answer 5

You could try using trash instead. Just remember to empty it once in a while...