"The end result was a machine that was completely
unusable from the console, unreachable via telnet, ftp or ssh and,
somehow managed not to panic and crash after about 1000 faults of
every kind and color. We're confident it would have eventually gone
down, but it was surprisingly robust (in that respect). If we have
hours and hours to spend at some time in the future, we'll give the
same test a shot and see if the machine just comes back to its
senses over time (and how long that takes). Our bet is that it will
(like most Unix and Linux OS's running on halfway decent hardware).
Only time will tell.
"Following, a quick walkthrough of the experiment followed by
the tiny little shell script (only run once) that caused all the
damage. We called it tree, for some reason; perhaps because it
reminded us of that old saying "If a tree falls in a forest, no one
can hear you scream." ...damn! Got that one wrong, too! It's
amazing what a few basic shell commands and a simple double-exec
can do ;)"
