From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 4 7:19:10 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 860DE37B401 for ; Mon, 4 Nov 2002 07:19:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from typhoeus.it.uu.se (typhoeus.it.uu.se [130.238.8.11]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51B7443E75 for ; Mon, 4 Nov 2002 07:19:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ertr1013@csd.uu.se) Received: (from ertr1013@localhost) by typhoeus.it.uu.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA09294 for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org; Mon, 4 Nov 2002 16:18:54 +0100 (MET) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 16:18:53 +0100 From: Erik Trulsson To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Re: non-writeable directory - can't be removed Message-ID: <20021104151853.GA8703@student.uu.se> References: <20021104145702.GB46132@keyslapper.org> <20021104145939.GA75425@arpa.com> <20021104150624.GC46132@keyslapper.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20021104150624.GC46132@keyslapper.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, Nov 04, 2002 at 10:06:25AM -0500, Louis LeBlanc wrote: > On 11/04/02 08:59 AM, Chip Norkus sat at the `puter and typed: > > On Mon Nov 04, 2002; 09:57AM -0500 Louis LeBlanc propagated the following: > > > Hey all. I'm trying to get some temp files cleaned out, and the one > > > giving me trouble is /tmp/temproot/var/empty/ > > > > > > The empty directory is in fact empty, but the ownership and > > > permissions seem to make it impossible to remove it. I've tried rm > > > -rf, rm -df, and rmdir all as root, but all I get is: > > > # rm -df empty/ > > > rm: empty/: Operation not permitted > > > > > > > Try 'chflags noschg /tmp/temproot/var/empty' and then try removing it > > again. > > > Cool. That did the trick, but why would a directory be set > unwriteable *and* immutable? Like I said before, it seems it would > make the directory useless. Not quite. I think /var/empty is used for sshd to chroot into. This means that it needs to exist, but can be empty, and indeed *should* be empty to minimize security risks. That directory is unwriteable and immutable to make sure that it not only is empty but *stays* empty. Otherwise some unsuspecting sysadmin might remove it thinking it is unimportant, but this way said sysadmin will realize that there is *something* special about the directory. The directory in /tmp/temproot sounds like remains from a mergemaster run that didn't finish normally. (Since mergemaster normally cleans up after itself.) -- Erik Trulsson ertr1013@student.uu.se To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message