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:
From a fish user I appreciate this
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
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 @Delta_V@lemmy.world 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