Re: [SLE] Undeletable files/directory

From: Dave Smith (Dave.Smith_at_st.com)
Date: 11/13/03

  • Next message: Sharpe, Richard: "[SLE] SuSE Firewall on CD" 
    Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 14:34:02 +0000
To: suse-linux-e@suse.com

    On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 01:25:07AM +1100, blchupin@tpg.com.au wrote:
    > I have a partition (/data1) formatted in reiserfs on the second HD where
    > I store backups of various files.
    >
    > I just installed SUSE 9 and whether this caused the problem I don't know
    > - and I don't really care so long as I can delete some files.
    >
    > What the problem is is that I suddenly found files in a directory in
    > /data1 which I cannot delete even as root. The message I get if I try to
    > delete is Permission denied (13). All the files begin with the character
    > '?' and are 0 bytes long.
    >
    > The files are only visible using mc (Midnight Commander) and are
    > coloured red; they are not visible using ls -la from the command line or
    > using Konqueror.
    >
    > Trying to delete them from the command line using rm <filename> gives
    > the same error message as in mc, ie Permission denied, while doing rm
    > <?filename> gives the message of No such file.
    >
    > Short of reformatting the partition, how may I delete these files? And
    > what the heck are they so that even root cannot touch them?

    Have you tried

      rm \?<filename>

    (without the '<>')?

    The shell might be trying to expand the ?.

    Also, you don't need permission on the file itself to delete it, but the
    directory in which it resides. Run an 'ls -ld /data1', and check the
    permissions. I think that even 'root' can deny permission to itself if
    it wants to. You may also have mounted the partition read-only, so check
    your /etc/fstab, and the output of 'mount'.

    HTH... 

    -- 
David Smith            Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com
STMicroelectronics     Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk
Bristol, England          GPG Key: 0xF13192F2
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