[CentOS] C5 : Deleting un-deletable files ?

Sat Sep 13 17:20:15 UTC 2014
Always Learning <centos at u62.u22.net>

During a routine trawl through the ext3 files, I found some astronomical file sizes, billions and billions of GB.
They also has strange user and group names.
I can not delete these "weird files" (the term used by the operating system utilities).

Here are a few examples. The original files were created on Windoze 98 version 2 circa 2001.

> 2411957 p--x---rwx 65487 299196551 2101198676            775118685 Apr  5  1943 00002434.thm
> 2411959 ?--xr-srwT  6581     42211      24637           1333254828 Jan 30  2029 00002435
> 2411960 -rwxr-xr-x 44608 305922048 3679253821 14580319157523353423 Dec  1  1949 00002437

lsattr: Operation not supported While reading flags on .....

stat   .......   A "normal" file looks this this example:

>   File: `00002436'
>   Size: 47537           Blocks: 96         IO Block: 4096   regular file
> Device: fd00h/64768d    Inode: 2411956     Links: 1
> Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
> Access: 2014-09-13 17:36:21.000000000 +0100
> Modify: 2001-02-21 00:52:50.000000000 +0000
> Change: 2013-03-12 06:26:36.000000000 +0000

The problem files look like this:

> File: `00002434.thm'
>   Size: 775118685       Blocks: 3429617551 IO Block: 4096   fifo
> Device: fd00h/64768d    Inode: 2411957     Links: 65487
> Access: (0107/p--x---rwx)  Uid: (299196551/ UNKNOWN)   Gid: (2101198676/ UNKNOWN)
> Access: 1951-12-14 00:29:38.000000000 +0000
> Modify: 1943-04-05 10:37:22.000000000 +0200
> Change: 2011-08-13 06:50:44.000000000 +0100

>   File: `00002435'
>   Size: 1333254828      Blocks: 1402834881 IO Block: 4096   weird file
> Device: fd00h/64768d    Inode: 2411959     Links: 6581
> Access: (3156/?--xr-srwT)  Uid: (42211/ UNKNOWN)   Gid: (24637/ UNKNOWN)
> Access: 1926-11-04 02:28:28.000000000 +0000
> Modify: 2029-01-30 15:25:30.000000000 +0000
> Change: 1928-09-14 11:19:14.000000000 +0100

>  File: `00002437'
>   Size: 14580319157523353423    Blocks: 1664918158 IO Block: 4096   regular file
> Device: fd00h/64768d    Inode: 2411960     Links: 44608
> Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (305922048/ UNKNOWN)   Gid: (3679253821/ UNKNOWN)
> Access: 2014-09-13 17:36:28.000000000 +0100
> Modify: 1949-12-01 22:31:41.000000000 +0000
> Change: 2030-03-17 01:15:08.000000000 +0000


rm: cannot remove `00002437': Operation not permitted

However using 'lsattr 00002437' to expose the flags, then removing
the flags with 'chattr -{flag) 00002437' eventually permitted me to delete the file with 'rm 00002437'.

The remaining two files appear un-touchable.

    lsattr 00002435
    lsattr: Operation not supported While reading flags on 00002435

    chattr -a 00002434.thm  ('a' was a random choice)
    chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on 00002434.thm

    find . -inum 2411959 -exec rm -i {} \;
    rm: remove weird file `./00002435'? y
    rm: cannot remove `./00002435': Operation not permitted

All advice, except to transfer everything to a new partition then reformat the bad partition (which I will do eventually), appreciated.



-- 
Thank you,

Paul.
England, EU.

   Centos, Exim, Apache, Libre Office is the future. Micro$oft is the past.