Questions tagged [rm]

Questions relating to the Linux remove command (rm)

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Why did an rm command executed from a pwd NOT / remove directories from it?

OK, so I've been doing different levels of sysadmin for almost a decade and yet I fell victim to an age old mistake; though I do not understand why it happened. I was in my server sorting through ...
user809476's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to prevent users from deleting files that are already in use?

Consider this scenario: User is executing a command on a file. This file becomes 'in-use' now. $ tail -f somefile.log In another shell, user deletes the file. $ rm somefile.log Now, this file is '...
Shaakunthala's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
862 views

When is it safe to delete the contents of /tmp and /var/tmp?

I'm trying to make a locked down, auto-restoring system that will restore itself once every week. I'm wondering if /tmp and /var/tmp can be safely removed if the system is booted on a different ...
naedozi's user avatar
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2 votes
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rm -r /media/externalHD --> can't boot without external HD anymore

My external HD was mounted in /media/user/TRANSFER. By mistake I typed sudo rm -r /media/theo/TRANSFER There was an error because the device was occupied and fortunately, I haven't lost my data. ...
Theova's user avatar
  • 41
2 votes
0 answers
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File appears in ls, but cannot be moved, opened, or deleted

I have a few files in a certain directory that appear in ls, but any attempts to delete, move, or open them direction (via terminal or GUI) are met with a "No such file or directory" error. Trying ...
Veronica Pillar's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
2k views

Cannot remove the file - "No such file or directory"

Yesterday I found this file in my git repo and I can't get rid of it no matter how hard I try. The file is located on a NTFS disk. sebastian@protean /media/sebastian/DATA/04 - PROJECTS/02 - MANAGER/...
Sebastian's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
1k views

How to remove the config file of eclipse(default)

In my Ubuntu 16.04, I installed eclipse. But Java perspective is not working. I have installed open-jdk but Java perspective is not coming up. When I tried they are getting the java perspective by ...
Suraj Kumar's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Aliased rm, how do I also alias sudo rm

I aliased rm to a echo use del or full path to rm to save myself from accidental rm (just lost my $HOME to it). But sudo rm still uses /bin/rm. How can I alias it to also print same message? PS: del ...
Sourabh's user avatar
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1 vote
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829 views

Trying to use extundelete for recovering a "rm -rf"ed directory. But receiving this: extundelete: No such file or directory /dev/sda5

so I accidentally deleted a dirrectory using "rm -rf". I am trying to recover is using extundelete. So far I have done these: $ sudo umount -l /dev/sda5 $ extundelete --restore-directory {...
pigwidgeon's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
127 views

Order of File Deletion in Bash

I'm surprised that I was not able to find this question posted already, but is there an definitive order in which files are deleted when using rm -r? For context, I accidentally began deleting a large ...
Benjamin Brownlee's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
345 views

how to automatically delete the folders of more than one day in the crontab

I would like to delete all of the directories that are more than one day old, knowing that these directories can be empty or not. this command must be executed from the crontab every day. I tried ...
Cedric Tegue's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

Started to delete /usr/share by mistake: what to do now?

In Ubuntu 16.04, I ran by mistake sudo rm -rf /usr/share. I know how stupid that is (I wanted to remove /usr/share/somefolder that had been installed as root and got distracted). I interrupted it ...
anderstood's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
775 views

How to trigger a terminal command when incorrect password entered...?

I am trying to make a line of secure operating systems with Ubuntu as the base OS, and I want to have an automated function that will erase the disk if certain triggers are met. Here is what I need (...
SYGMAH's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
551 views

Delete Folder containing script itself

Let's assume we have a folder /home/user/testfolder, and this folder contains several files, including an uninstall script. This script is supposed to delete /home/user/testfolder and all its content ...
RoiEX's user avatar
  • 433
1 vote
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112 views

How can i remove home directory from download directory without deleting it

In my Downloads folder when I make ls I see the home directory, and I don't know why, I want to remove it but I am afraid to remove my home folder. Can anyone tell me how I can just remove the home ...
rainman's user avatar
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1 vote
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How to recover user data missing after reset of computer

I was trying to figure out how watch 4oD (as like many people it just loads forever and never actually plays anything) so I used the help on this page: 4oD (UK) - Can't stream I started with this:...
Frannatello's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
43 views

I need help deleting my 20GB error log

My storage was being filled for an unknown reason, until I found by error log is 20GB+. When I tried to delete from disk usage analyzer, it gave me an error “Failed to move file to trash|Unable to ...
JkittenYT's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
37 views

Accidentally removed /var folder then turned off

I did something even dumber than this post, which accidentally removed the /var folder. I then turned off the computer. Now, I can't turn back in. When booting, it stays blocked at /var/lib/snaps/...
bixiou's user avatar
  • 11
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0 answers
386 views

Ubuntu 22.04 after "rm /*" symlink /bin is gone, bash complain: /bin/bash: bad interpreter

Mistakenly ran rm /* as root. In result, it did remove all files from linux root dir, but preserved folders. (which is good news) lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Aug 5 2020 bin -> usr/bin ...
Lnuynxa's user avatar
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500 views

I cannot rm -rf this directory Permission denied even though I have perm WSL2 ubuntu

So there is this location ~/.local/share/nvim/mason/.packages for mason to properly install packages it apparently needs to be able to remove stuff within this folder however my user doesn't have perm ...
Sombre Dreamer's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
414 views

How do you figure out what rm -rf deleted

I've accidentally executed rm -rf ~ because I failed to autocomplete a directory and it stayed with my home directory. I was quick enough to kill the command in time, so no real damage (I think) was ...
Joliver's user avatar
  • 101
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1 answer
101 views

Cannot delete or restore files from Trash

When I try to delete a file from Trash I get the message Error while deleting There was an error getting information about "file.txt". Timeout was reached If I remove the file using the rm ...
redfords's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
144 views

Undeletable "Icon" file

I have a strange problem with some files on my NAS that are not deletable, maybe remnants of some MacOS file copy. They appear with filename "Icon" in file manager but as 'Icon'$'\r' with ls....
lucaspeed's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
62 views

Keep bigger size image file and delete image files with smaller sizes of same name, using terminal command

Keep bigger size image file and delete image files with smaller sizes of same name, using terminal command My directory may contain a_500.jpg, a_1280.jpg BUT b_500.jpg, c_500.jpg, c_800.jpg. So, in ...
Estatistics's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why I can not remove neither folder nor its content?

Here is the folder and its content.I don't understand why I cannot remove these files and this folder. ls -ltr results in: total 16672704 -rwxrwxrwx 0 17064381527 Eyl 2 18:10 101737-31-HO-...
Baran Aldemir's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
1k views

How to delete this WindowsApps folder (permission denied with rm even with sudo :( )?

I used to use windows on my laptop and then moved ubuntu. While I was using windows, I once moved microsoft store apps to a different partition to save space in C drive and I guess it was saved in &...
Jarif Rahman's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
2k views

rm no such file or directory terminal

I have tried --force, it doesn't work. When I put in sudo rm -d /someplace/wanttodelete it says: rm: cannot remove '/someplace/wanttodelete': No such file or directory There is a directory, I can cd ...
Aurora Dizon's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
4k views

Cannot remove read only file system

I have some videos recorded using gopro. The videos are in the SD card. Now i want to delete them. But rm gives me this command. How do I delete them? rm: cannot remove 'GOPR0002.JPG': Read-only file ...
Kong's user avatar
  • 1,221
0 votes
1 answer
377 views

Bash delete file with two variable path not working

I have a bash script containing this code: path=/apps/files/ ext=*.csv rm -f $path$ext This is not working. When I set -o to echo each command I see this in the output... rm -f '*.csv' So it's ...
user873631's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
194 views

Automate Deletion of File from terminal

I want to write a Python script that will automate my commands without waiting for user input. My python script will delete the least played video. When I execute the command: rm video_123.mp4 it ...
ron123456's user avatar
  • 343
0 votes
1 answer
26 views

RM on an LUKS installation?

I am just wondering what will happen if you do sudo rm -rf / --no-preserve-root on an LUKS installation... Will the LUKS information be corrupted, rendering it useless (impossible to recover files) or ...
SYGMAH's user avatar
  • 138
0 votes
0 answers
39 views

How to make the system display an image after RM on root?

Is there possibly a way to cause the system to display an image (from another partition, so that the image isn't deleted upon sudo rm -rf / --no-preserve-root) when the operating system can't be found?...
SYGMAH's user avatar
  • 138
0 votes
0 answers
936 views

How do I use logrotate to remove old log tarballs?

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04. I want to rotate log files daily, including deleting old tarballs. I edited my logrotate.conf file, /etc/logrotate.conf, like so /home/rails/myproject/log { daily ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 2,095
0 votes
0 answers
33 views

Two direcories.. Two capacities.. One drive.. How to fix this?

This is my predicament You see here one drive (the Intel SSD shown on disks app) which is labeled as /device/sdb yet some how an other drive (WD HDD) labeled as /device/sdc link to the same directory ...
papajo's user avatar
  • 2,977
0 votes
1 answer
91 views

Does anyone have some suggestions for me I deleted some important files

Is there a way to recover removed files in a situation such as described below? The command I executed was: root@system:/# rm -r /tmp/letsencrypt.sh-XXXXXX l* I tried to remove all the files in ...
oscrx's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

Deleted 16GB MySQL log file, no space freed

I deleted a 16GB MYSQL log file via the command line: sudo rm /var/log/mysql/slow.log but the space has not been freed. Is there some sort of flush I need to run?
Kohjah Breese's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
3k views

Home deleted by rm command, cannot login

I tried to use rm to format a pendrive but it also deleted everything inside my Home folder. Now I can't even login anymore. Also, pressing shift on boot wont enter in recovery mode. I have the ...
user285672's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
127 views

How do I determine what is using the folder?

I just can't delete the folder under root (it says that resource/device is busy), but lsof and fuser tell me nothing. The folder is located in the depth of /var/www/... and I tried to delete it after ...
Airee's user avatar
  • 25
0 votes
1 answer
415 views

How can I remove this file?

I'm using an Apple Timecapsule mounted via gvfs-mount (I tried cifs too) which contains a file named Capitoli 3:5.odt I definitely want to remove that but I had no luck. From ubuntu the most i ...
Dariopnc's user avatar
  • 417
0 votes
1 answer
106 views

Crontab entry not running as expected

I have setup crontab e with the following line and it is not running every hour on the 14th minute as I expect it should. 14 * * * * rm -rf ~/.local/share/Trash/* First, is this code correct? ...
Norman Bird's user avatar