Can't remove or change a directory [corrected]

Les hlhowell at pacbell.net
Thu Nov 15 19:48:14 UTC 2007


On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 11:44 -0800, Les wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 13:49 -0500, James Pifer wrote:
> > I have an fc7 box that I'm trying to remove a directory on. I don't
> > remember why I was playing with the directory permissions in the first
> > place, but I just want to get rid of it. 
> > 
> > the directory is in /root and looks like this:
> > dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 2007-11-09 15:35 tmp
> > 
> > I can't do anything with it. Any file change I try to make, chmod, rm,
> > mv, etc I get this error like:
> > chmod: changing permissions of `tmp': Read-only file system
> > 
> > How can I get rid of this directory? I've been googling in circles and
> > can't find a solution.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > James
> > 
> Hi, James, 
> 	Since root owns the directory, you have to be root to change it.  BUT!!
> be aware that tmp is a system directory.  Any buffering, temporary
> storage, or image viewing you do on the internet likely uses this
> directory.  
> 	Try the following:
> 	su -
> 	enter the password for root as requested
> 	cd /
> 	chmod 777 tmp
> 	chmod +t tmp
> 	ls -al | grep tmp
> 	drwxrwxrwt   ## root root #### 2007-11-15 11:24 tmp
> 
> 	Note that ## is 
                                   a number which I think is size in
blocks which includes the file in the directory, and that #### is the
size of the actual file
> 
> The t symbol marks the file as temporary, which is of interest to some
> utilities during boot.  IF you omit the t, the tmp fill will eventually
> overflow because it is not being flushed.
> 
> Regards,
> Les H
> 




More information about the fedora-list mailing list