Cannot delete stubborn files - New Hint
Garrett Cooper
youshi10 at u.washington.edu
Sun Jun 4 13:34:53 PDT 2006
On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:57 PM, Jack Stone wrote:
>> From: "Jack Stone" <antennex at hotmail.com>
>> To: wmoran at collaborativefusion.com
>> CC: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> Subject: Re: Cannot delete stubborn files
>> Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 14:52:01 -0500
>>
>>> From: Bill Moran <wmoran at collaborativefusion.com>
>>> To: "Jack Stone" <antennex at hotmail.com>
>>> CC: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> Subject: Re: Cannot delete stubborn files
>>> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:40:22 -0400
>>>
>>> "Jack Stone" <antennex at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > >From: Chris Hill <chris at monochrome.org>
>>> > >To: Jack Stone <antennex at hotmail.com>
>>> > >CC: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> > >Subject: Re: Cannot delete stubborn files
>>> > >Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 09:39:51 -0400 (EDT)
>>> > >
>>> > >On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, Jack Stone wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > >>I have 2 files that resists all efforts to delete them.
>>> > >
>>> > >[...]
>>> > >
>>> > >>Here are the files and the error message:
>>> > >>rm: local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/mach/Sys/Hostname.pm: Operation not
>>> permitted
>>> > >>rm: local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/mach/Sys/Syslog.pm: Operation not
>>> permitted
>>> > >
>>> > >Make sure the files do not have the system immutable flag set:
>>> > >
>>> > ># chflags noschg local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/mach/Sys/Hostname.pm
>>> > ># chflags noschg local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/mach/Sys/Syslog.pm
>>> > >
>>> > >...and then see if you can't delete them. I don't know why the
>>> flag would
>>> > >be set, but it's something to try.
>>> > >
>>> > >HTH.
>>> > >
>>> > >--
>>> > >Chris Hill chris at monochrome.org
>>> >
>>> > Chris: Tried that at the very first. No joy!
>>>
>>> If flags and permissions are all set so that the files should
>>> delete, and
>>> they still don't, reboot the system into single user mode and
>>> fsck the
>>> partition.
>>>
>>> I had this happen a number of years ago. We had dirty power and
>>> the system
>>> would reboot on occasion during brownout. We finally got UPS on
>>> the system,
>>> but months later we had files that wouldn't delete. The only way
>>> we finally
>>> got rid of them was to reboot in single user and fsck. I expect
>>> the disk
>>> suffered some subtle corruption during an unclean boot and it
>>> took time
>>> before we noticed.
>>>
>>> Another option would be to use fstat to make sure nothing has the
>>> files open.
>>>
>>> HTH.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bill Moran
>>>
>>
>> Hi, Bill: Yes, tried all of that before and again no joy -- very
>> mysteries.
>> A free cigar to anyone who solves this one!
>>
>
> Since I learned I could "mv" the directory that contains the 2
> files, I tried to move it to another partition, figuring I had a
> solution IF I could only do that.
>
> Here's the new error when I tried to move the directory from "/"
> to /usr
>
> mv: /bin/rm: terminated with 1 (non-zero) status: Cross-device link
>
> Does this new hint stike any bells?
>
> THX
> Jack
I assume that you tried deleting this as root? Sometimes files have
been resistant to my deleting them unless I am root, even when I'm
the owner.
Have you also tried doing something to the file to write to it, like
cat or echo? My theory is that maybe if you did that then tried to
delete the file, it will work because you flushed the previous
information and closed the file properly.
Best of luck,
-Garrett
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