[PLUG] trouble deleting files

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Mark Turner wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Bill Barry <bill at billbarry.org> wrote:
>> I am deleting some old backups and I getting some errors like
>>
>> rm: cannot remove `rpl_ignore_table.test': Permission denied
>>
>> I am root, but still I get permission denied.
>>
>> When I do a directory listing I get a bunch of question marks where I
>> should get owners, groups, etc
>>
>> ls -l
>>
>> ?????????? ? ? ? ?            ? rpl_ignore_table.test
>> ?????????? ? ? ? ?            ? rpl_init_slave-slave.opt
>> ?????????? ? ? ? ?            ? rpl_init_slave.test
>> ?????????? ? ? ? ?            ? rpl_innodb.test
>> ?????????? ? ? ? ?            ? rpl_insert_delayed.test
>>
>>
>> Anybody know how to get rid of these files?
> 
> 
> What do the permissions of the parent folder look like?
> Are these backups to the same disk your system runs on?
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Well ... I ran into something like this and ended up having to write a
Perl script to open the directory ("opendir"), search through it, and
then unlink all the files with the bogus names. I couldn't figure out
how to do that from the command line or a bash script -- I had to do it
in Perl.

But depending on how badly messed up other things in the filesystem are,
you might be safer making a copy of everything you do want (which you
should do anyhow), rebuilding the filesystem, and copying stuff back.

So ... first step ... back up everything! Then at least if the
filesystem is badly broken, you can get a clean one.
-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P), WOM

I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.