# DD only with if



## BsDjUsTbSd (May 18, 2020)

Today i accidently run dd  with only if and no output. it displayed lots of weird characters and symbols and said 20mb copied(from an iso). Did it damage anything the system boots fine.
I am not worried for that small 20mb but rather if it deleted something to put the 20MB there.


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## Phishfry (May 18, 2020)

Using dd with no target simply shows up on your console (stdout).
No damage.


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## BsDjUsTbSd (May 18, 2020)

Thanks comrade for assuring me that i am safe. However next time i should watch more what i do because it could truly be a disaster one day


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## ralphbsz (May 18, 2020)

A: Read and understand the documentation of dd before using it. Admittedly, it has a pretty weird way of specifying parameters and options (namely input and output files), which is very non-unixish.

B: As long as you are not running as root, it is very difficult to do serious damage to the OS as a whole.


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