Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 19 Jun 1997 05:57:02 -0400 (EDT) | | From | Ricky Beam <> | | Subject | Re: DANGER! pre-patch-2.1.43 (the undead rm can't die) |
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Letting the chips far where they may, I quote Blu3Viper: >not so. if a directory such as new/ for example is missing the . and .. >entries, trying to rm -rf new/ will hang and it *will* drive the load up >substantially. ...
In such a case, you have a real problem (tm)... Don't try to "rm" the damaged directory. Remove everything in the directory that can be safely deleted without causing more trouble, then 'unlink' the directory. Only root can unlink a non-empty directory. The fsck after a restart in single user mode with the drive in RO mode will bitch about stuff left dangling and proceed to put them in lost+found. From there, you may or may not be able to delete the remaining cruft. And you may end up with some lost drive space in the deal.
NOTE: You _can_ get a filesystem so fubar'ed you will need a disk editor to have any hope of repairing the damage. (And, yes, I have gotten a FS thusly fubar'ed and fixed it after several _hours_ of rebuilding directory structures.)
--Ricky
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