I have a symlink to an important directory. I want to get rid of that symlink, while keeping the directory behind it.
I tried rm and get back rm: cannot remove 'foo'.
I tried rmdir and got back rmdir: failed to remove 'foo': Directory not empty
I then progressed through rm -f, rm -rf and sudo rm -rf
Then I went to find my back-ups.
Is there a way to get rid of the symlink with out throwing away the baby with the bathwater?
# this works:
rm foo
# versus this, which doesn't:
rm foo/
Basically, you need to tell it to delete a file, not delete a directory. I believe the difference between rm and rmdir exists because of differences in the way the C library treats each.
At any rate, the first should work, while the second should complain about foo being a directory.
If it doesn't work as above, then check your permissions. You need write permission to the containing directory to remove files.
use the "unlink" command and make sure not to have the / at the end
$ unlink mySymLink
unlink() deletes a name from the file system. If that name was the last link to a file and no processes have the file open the file is deleted and the space it was using is made available for reuse.
If the name was the last link to a file but any processes still have the file open the file will remain in existence until the last file descriptor referring to it is closed.
I think this may be problematic if I'm reading it correctly.
If the name referred to a symbolic link the link is removed.
If the name referred to a socket, fifo or device the name for it is removed but processes which have the object open may continue to use it.
https://linux.die.net/man/2/unlink
rm should remove the symbolic link.
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ mkdir bar
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ ln -s bar foo
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ ls -l foo
lrwxrwxrwx 1 skrall skrall 3 2008-10-16 16:22 foo -> bar
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ rm foo
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ ls -l foo
ls: cannot access foo: No such file or directory
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$ ls -l bar
total 0
skrall#skrall-desktop:~$
Use rm symlinkname but do not include a forward slash at the end (do not use: rm symlinkname/). You will then be asked if you want to remove the symlink, y to answer yes.
Assuming it actually is a symlink,
$ rm -d symlink
It should figure it out, but since it can't we enable the latent code that was intended for another case that no longer exists but happens to do the right thing here.
If rm cannot remove a symlink, perhaps you need to look at the permissions on the directory that contains the symlink. To remove directory entries, you need write permission on the containing directory.
Assuming your setup is something like: ln -s /mnt/bar ~/foo, then you should be able to do a rm foo with no problem. If you can't, make sure you are the owner of the foo and have permission to write/execute the file. Removing foo will not touch bar, unless you do it recursively.
I also had the same problem. So I suggest to try unlink <absolute path>.
For example unlink ~/<USER>/<SOME OTHER DIRECTORY>/foo.
On CentOS, just run rm linkname and it will ask to "remove symbolic link?". Type Y and Enter, the link will be gone and the directory be safe.
I had this problem with MinGW (actually Git Bash) running on a Windows Server. None of the above suggestions seemed to work. In the end a made a copy of the directory in case then deleted the soft link in Windows Explorer then deleted the item in the Recycle Bin. It made noises like it was deleting the files but didn't. Do make a backup though!
you can use unlink in the folder where you have created your symlink
If rm cannot remove a link, perhaps you need to look at the permissions on the directory that contains the link. To remove directory entries, you need write permission on the containing directory.
Related
This question already has an answer here:
Delete folder that contain subfolders and files on linux
(1 answer)
Closed 1 year ago.
I've been trying to remove an unwanted file: 'PycharmProjects' but I can't seem to be able to do it. Every time I use the rm command (as in rm filename) the linux terminals says this: rm: cannot remove 'PycharmProjects': Is a directory. I've also tried trying to just unistall it from files but every time I do that an error occurs. Could you please help me.
NOTE: I use chromebook
If linux says that is a directory please try to run
rm -d filename
and if not worked try next command
rm -r dirname
here also is an article about deleting files and directories in linux command line:
https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-remove-files-and-directories-using-linux-command-line/
you would try
rm -rf "name_directory"
with rm you will use the remove command; with -r you will select anything on specified directory; and with -f you will force, omiting any rule or barrier of security so you must be careful because a rm -rf command could delete any important data from your disc so you will need admin permissions to execute that command but you will discover could be useful sometimes.
P.D. when you need help with any command you can use the man command that will show you a manual for the command selected for example in this case you can write
man rm
that will show you all the options that you can do with that command depending to the command you also can find information like the developer of the command; common structures and more interesting information.
normally the man command come preinstall in the popular distrubutions but if you type "man" and it isn´t work you could search on internet how to install the man on your linux distribution
have a nice day and welcome to linux :)
Generally, rmdir is the correct way to remove a directory in Linux (and mkdir to create a directory). If your directly is not empty, then rmdir won't remote it.
The command rm -rf <dirname> (where "dirname" is your directory's name) is the less safe way to remove a directory and all of its contents. Only use it if you're sure that the directory doesn't contain information you want to preserve. Remember the rm and rmdir commands don't put anything in a "Recycle Bin" or similar!
I want to ask when I delete file in folder symlink target, is it possible make the file is still available in original file?
I use ls -n /folder /target but when I delete file in /target , in original folder deleted too.
Remove Symbolic Links with rm
rm symlink_name
Remove Symbolic Links with unlink
unlink symlink_name
Unlink command and rm command without -R option doesn't delete regular directory. The two commands delete symbolic link from directory because it's considered as a file so, when using the rm or unlink command to remove a symbolic link from a directory, make sure you don’t end the target with a / character because that will create an error
Please read more in documentation, man pages etc.
As I understood question - you should remove symlink to directory, but make symlink for each file in directory to target directory. So you will have two normal directories and lot of symlink for files.
Only this way you can delete one particular file in target directory and still have it in original directory
If you want to make it work both ways - to delete file in original directory and still have it in target - make non symlink but hard link with ln for each file.
Say that I have the folder /dir. Is there a command in bash that I can use so that after performing it, no one could create new files in /dir?
Edit: important to mention that after performing the command, there will be same permissions to the directory files as they were before. For example, if I have folder /dir with file a.txt in it - so after I use my desired command I cant create new files, but I can modify/delete a.txt if I want.
you could change the permission with chmod to only let people read the folders content.
chmod a-w /dir
Will remove all write permissions of all (ugo), but keep x (execute) and r (read) permissions intact.
Yes, it's pretty simple. Just chmod to read only. Here is a sample
chmod -R 0444 /path/to/your/dir/
Where the last 3 4's mean User-readonly, Group-readonly and others-readonly respectively.
Is a Linux file system able to allow or deny the right to move a folder? Active Directory does not, as far as I can tell. I'm curious, and 3 different wordings generated no results.
Yes. If you have a folder foo/bar/, you could make the folder foo read-only, which would prevent people from moving bar:
$ chmod a-w foo
$ mv foo/bar ack
mv: cannot move ‘foo/bar’ to ‘ack’: Permission denied
The can't move bar, but they can still change what's inside of it:
$ echo hello > foo/bar/hello.txt
$ rm foo/bar/hello.txt
In linux you can use chattr to make a file or folder immutable like so:
chattr +i file
This way, not even the super can move, modify or delete the file.
To revert it you can use:
chattr -i file
This works for on ext filesystems
To delete a file in Linux,
What minimal permissions do we need to set on it?
What minimal permissions do we need to set on its parent directory?
You need to have x-permissions and w-permissions on the directory (and of course x-permissions on all parents), that is all.
mkdir foo
touch foo/bar
chmod 300 foo
chmod 000 foo/bar
rm -f foo/bar
But when testing you might stumble into thinking that you need more (e. g. r-permissions for the directory or whatever). This will be only due to false testing ;-)