[rgrau]

Part of the mystery of the infamous shell fork bomb is that it picks a weird name like ':' for the function name.

    :(){ :|:& };:

Turns into a less mysterious:

    bomb() {
      bomb | bomb &
    }
    bomb

I started a booklet with some of these tricks and explanations in https://raimonster.com/scripting-field-guide/, in case anyone wants to give feedback (or PRs), it'd be much appreciated.

[yesenadam]

Good stuff, thank you! Hope this helps a little. (I could send more corrections if you like as I read more.)

rethoric -> rhetoric

1 off -> one-off

ment -> meant

low hanging -> low-hanging

flag you many of those ticking bombs -> flag many of those ticking bombs for you

No matter which editor you are using, but you -> No matter which editor you are using, you

The best example in that StackOverflow is this one: -> [maybe delete this line? or write something else. I don't know its purpose, it makes no sense.]

a bunch of elements from one go -> a bunch of elements in one go

functions in shell -> shell functions

using user's input -> using user input/using the user's input

you can unset -> You can unset

lots of code you see around rely on -> lots of code you see around relies on

to thinking on creating -> to thinking about creating

[rgrau]

thanks so much! I'll fix all those right away :+1:

[ufo]

I'll take this chance to ask a fork bomb question I always had: on Linux, is there a way to stop a fork bomb once it gets going, other than turning off the power?

[411111111111111]

As far as I know the only way to handle a fork bomb is to limit the allowed forks an instance is allowed to create.

This limit isn't set by default in most distributions, but does exist.

It would still crash the bombed shell but the server itself would be safe and a manual kill signal could be send to the bombing thread.