This is a Bash fork bomb, a malicious function definition that recursively calls itself:
:() — defines a function named : (yes, just a colon).
{ [:|:&] } — the function's body:
:|: — pipes the output of the function into another call of itself, creating two processes each time.
& — runs the call in the background, meaning it doesn’t wait for completion.
; — ends the function definition.
: — finally, this invokes the function once, starting the bomb.
The form “function(){content}” in bash defines a function called “function” that, when called by name, executes “content”. This forkbomb defines a function called : (just a colon) which calls itself twice in a new subprocess (the two colons inside the curly brackets). It thus spawns more and more copies of itself until it overwhelms your processor.
This is a Bash fork bomb, a malicious function definition that recursively calls itself:
thx, I think I get it, it’s do it’s as many processes as your computer will run until it crashes
yeah, pretty much
From a fish user I appreciate this
Why are the square brackets there?
There aren’t any square brackets.
The form “function(){content}” in bash defines a function called “function” that, when called by name, executes “content”. This forkbomb defines a function called : (just a colon) which calls itself twice in a new subprocess (the two colons inside the curly brackets). It thus spawns more and more copies of itself until it overwhelms your processor.
I understood, it’s just that @[email protected] added square brackets to his explanation.
because I didn’t know what it did either, then made a typo in the ChatGPT prompt when asking about it