removing /var/empty on a non-system disk

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 25 May 2012 15:04:50 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> On 05/25/12 14:21, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Fri, 25 May 2012 14:04:50 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> >> something I'm not seeing
> >>
> >> I've got a disk previously used as a sys disk I'm trying to clean up.
> >> What's the key to removing /var/empty?
> >>
> >> 280 /hd1/var#sysctl kern.securelevel
> >> kern.securelevel: -1
> >> 281 /hd1/var#ls -l
> >> total 4
> >> dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  512 Jan  3 00:55 empty
> >> 282 /hd1/var#chflags noschg empty
> >> 283 /hd1/var#chmod 777 empty
> >> chmod: empty: Operation not permitted
> >> 284 /hd1/var#rmdir empty
> >> rmdir: empty: Operation not permitted
> > 
> > Interesting, I just tried this on my home system (FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE)
> > and it worked as intended. I did use the exact commands,
> > same securelevel.
> > 
> > Use the -o option for ls (ls -lo) to check on the effect
> > of chflags and chmod.
> 
> Just found it, something I forgot about a long time ago...
> I was running under su logged in as my normal user.
> Had to back all the way out and log in as root.

I should have mentioned that I did the (successful) test
logging in as root (real console login). If you use "su -"
or "su root", the effect should be the same. You can always
check the success of your operation with the "ls -lo" command.



> > Without eexamining this behaviour in more detail, how about
> > this approach? Unmount the former system disk and newfs it?
> > That should "solve" the problem. :-)
> 
> Thought about that, but I wanted to understand what was going on.
> Ignorance is never a good excuse. :-)

True: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...