removing content of directory

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 8:04 pm

How can I delete the entire content of a directory with a single command? I want the equivalent of del foldername*.* I started rm'ing the files individualy but it's just too long. For some reason a bunch of mail got stuck in the mail queue and it keeps bouncing all over the server and not going anywhere and it's muliplying each time. It's at like 300+ now so I just want to delete them. webmin only allows me to delete 20 at once which is stupid, so that takes long too.

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wldkos · Post by **wldkos** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 2:31 am

rm -rf *

make sure your in the directory that you want this to happen. You can use rm -rf /home/red/ohnooos!

but i've have bad mistakes with that deleting things that can't come back. The "rm" tool doesn't have a recycle bin

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megaspaz · Post by **megaspaz** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 3:46 am

The "rm" tool doesn't have a recycle bin

neither does using del or deltree in windows.

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Cisco_Kid · Post by **Cisco_Kid** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:47 am

megaspaz wrote:
The "rm" tool doesn't have a recycle bin
neither does using del or deltree in windows.

I would think not as the recycle bin was not stolen from the Mac system GUI until win95 when windows finally just started to catch up on the visual side.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 5:53 pm

Thanks rm -f * worked

Well deleted stuff is recoverable, just not an easy task to do and you need a special program, which starts at a few grand and is hard to get at discount stores such as K-mart (Kazaa mart)

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wldkos · Post by **wldkos** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:52 am

rm -rf -- using the 'r' means recursive, and the 'f' means force, so it won't ask you if you want to delete the files.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:53 pm

Yeah I knew that. That's why I never type rm -rf /

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megaspaz · Post by **megaspaz** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:12 am

rm -rf / can be pretty totally safe... if invoked as a regular user. the only things that i know of off a default install that would get deleted would be files and directories owned by the user in /tmp.

*disclaimer, try it at your own risk.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 5:06 pm

unless you do a recursive chmod 777 on the / before.

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megaspaz · Post by **megaspaz** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:21 pm

Red Squirrel wrote: unless you do a recursive chmod 777 on the / before.

well then i guess you'd better stay away from chmod and rm.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:22 pm

Yep. But it would be near impossible to do both by accident though so that's reassuring.

So.... is the fact that I do everything under root bad? Since most things have it documented that it only works under root, so I never bothered making another account. So if I do rm -rf / will it delete everything?

(including any mapped drives etc...)

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closet geek · Post by **closet geek** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:17 pm

Red Squirrel wrote: So.... is the fact that I do everything under root bad? Since most things have it documented that it only works under root, so I never bothered making another account. So if I do rm -rf / will it delete everything? (including any mapped drives etc...)

By doing so you are bypassing one of the nicest security features of the linux kernel. It's your choice, but get into the bad habit now and you'll end up regretting it.

Andrew

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 6:09 pm

But what's the other alternative?

Whenever I read something it says that it only works under root. Obviously I have my server programs running as their own user (ex: apache runs under "apache") but for installing stuff and all that, I go under root.

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