rm: Operation not permitted

[Daniel Bye]

On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 01:25:36PM +0200, Antoine Jacoutot wrote:
> Hi !
> 
> I have a ERASE/empty/ directory in /root, and when I want to erase this 
> folder, I get the following error:
> # rm -Rf ERASE/
> rm: ERASE/empty: Operation not permitted
> rm: ERASE/: Directory not empty
> 
> I chmod everything to 777 but still get the same error (as root !).
> Is there any way I can get read of those folders ?

Try 

 # ls -lo /root/ERASE

You will probably see that the directory empty has the "schg" flag set.
This tells the kernel not to allow any alterations to flagged object.  To
remove it, you will need to remove the flag -

 # chflags -R noschg ERASE

will do the trick.  You can then remove ERASE and its contents.  

man chflags(1) for more details.

Dan

-- 
Daniel Bye

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