Which is why I refuse to name the online redos with a ".log" extension... My SF-10 moment* was when I was showing the new guy around VMS. I showed him the true power of DCL and how I had smartly aliased the "delete" command so I couldn't accidentally delete files I didn't mean to. I showed him VMS' Autogen, which is the system tuner for VMS and then decided to demo my smart aliases. On PRODUCTION. In the SYS$LIBRARY directory (think of /usr/lib on unix or C:\Windows\system32 on Winders). Funny thing about VMS' Autogen: the first thing it does is get rid of all your aliases, so as not to contaminate it's own processes. Yup, I had started to delete the system libraries, including the shared library for Interbase (our base of data at the time) before I hit <CTRL-C>. DB crashed and brought down ERP with it. One filled-shorts frantic call to the Backup/Recovery guy later and we were OK. The company paid for my "education" that day... Rich * -- "S" is for one of the nether muscles Jared inferred, "F" is for "Factor". -----Original Message----- From: Stephane Faroult Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 1:35 PM Cc: Oracle-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: OT moment of doubt Perhaps it would be safer to give another extension to database files on really important servers to avoid mistakes. Something like *.mpg for=20 instance. SF Joe wrote: >What would you call that moment in time after you do "rm *.dbf" on all >your database files, where you suddenly panic about whther you're on >the right server or not? > >This happens to me all the time, even after checking, even after 17 >yrs of DBA-ing. Kinda like that feeling you get when your chair starts >to tip over backwards but you catch yourself. > >:P > >Joe -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l