Linux – cannot remove owned file with 777 permissions

Question

I've couple of files that I cannot remove using rf -Rf command. I'm the owner of those file and the group assigned to those files is also a group my user is in. What's even weirder is that I can edit their content and I can change the permissions for them, but I can't move or delete them.

ls -al
total 12
dr-xr-xr-x 3 rayell pg1083760 4096 2010-10-10 10:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 rayell pg1083760 4096 2011-09-02 04:33 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 rayell pg1083760    0 2011-09-02 06:38 default.settings.php
drwxrwxrwx 2 rayell pg1083760 4096 2011-09-02 04:33 files
-rwxrwxrwx 1 rayell pg1083760    0 2011-09-02 06:38 settings.php


rm -Rf *
rm: cannot remove `default.settings.php': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove directory `files': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `settings.php': Permission denied

Can anyone tell me what is happening?

Solution 1

To remove one file you need write permission on the directory that contains¹ this file.

Here the permissions are dr-xr-xr-x 3 rayell pg1083760 4096 2010-10-10 10:00 . So nobody (other than root) can remove files inside this directory. The owner must use chmod first.

—
^{1. There are pretty good reasons for that. By ‘removing’ a file with rm, you are in fact trying to unlink it from the directory (hardlinked copies will not be deleted).}

Solution 2

Another possible question is attribute

lsattr file

This command will show you attribute of the file and a file with 'i' attribute cannot be modified (and be deleted)

so check your file's attribute and remove 'i' attribute if the attribute is been set

chattr -i file

Solution 3

I had the same problem, and chmod alone didn't do the trick. I first had to change the owner (user and group) of the files I wanted to remove.

sudo chown -hR root:admin dir_to_delete

Explanation:

• sudo: make sure you have the proper rights
• chown: Linux command to change owner of a file
• -hR: change owner of directory and all subdirectories. I found it here.
• root: name of new user
• admin: name of new group

I had already changed the modifiers to 777; I don't know if that was necessary or not.

Comments

[Sardathrion - against SE abuse]

In general, consider using rm -rf DIRECTORY_NAME and not "*". It will save you from that one time when you will think yourself in directory /some/where/safe but are instead in /home

[RaYell]

Actually I did try that, it was just those 3 files that I couldn't remove so I have simplified to procedure a bit for this post's purpose.

[Toby Speight]

Please don't condone making directories writable by everybody. That's not good advice.

[Toby Speight]

The question shows that it's the directory permissions that don't allow writing. No need to look further.

[André Figueira]

+1 - Agree, do not follow this advice, it's amazing, how this is plastered all over the internet... The amount of insecurity, caused by people advocating this is incredible...

[sgnsajgon]

Permissions of files within directory are irrelevant, only write permission on directory itself matters. Probably before chown you had been neither owner of directory nor member of directory owning group.

[Marc]

Ok, but this was the answer I needed! Thank you so much!