UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a directory with permissions set 777, and some gumby has dumped a bunch of files and directories in there.

I don't own the culprit files or directories, but do own the containing directory - Is there some way I can delete this other user's files?

The other interesting thing is that running ls -l I get a number instead of the owner's login name. I can't find any corresponding user ID in /etc/passwd - so I'm assuming the user no longer exists on the system, making it a little difficult to follow them up...

Thanks.

Directory permissions only grant read/write/exe to the directory...

IF this is your personal directory, I would change the world and group permissions to 000 to prevent them access... then when they complain ask them to remove...

OR get the SA to move them since you are not the SA.



I too have seen the number for the fileowner instead of the userID. Not sure I remember why this can happen. In the case of useing the UID, I think it is a system related setup. Some systems allow for the UID to be interchanged... in reality it is the same thing.

If this way my directory, I would just remove the file.


To delete a file you need write permission on the directory. So you should be able to just delete the file. The rm command will give you a warning, but you can override it. And you can use -f to suppress the warning.

I am depending here on your statement that the directory is 777. If it was 1777, then change may or may not change depending on your version of unix.

As for the numeric id, someone with permission to run chown can chown a file to any uid. But I usually see files like that on nfs mounted filesystems. The user would then have an accout on another system and created the file there.

/agree perderabo

I didnt think of changing the permissions on teh files and then rm them...

If you truly do have 777 on the dir... Run "ls -ld . " and post it back here... then you can simply and easily remove them...

OR at least move them to /tmp if you dont want to destroy them...

When I run ls -la I get:

drwxr-xr-x seiko group .
drwxr-xr-x seiko group ..
drwx------ 22866 difgroup not_my_dir



I want to remove the directory not_my_dir (and contained files, which I can't even see). While I may have ownership of the containing directory, I have no permissions for the directory I want to kill, therefore I can't just use "rm - rf not_my_dir".

Any other suggestions?

Sorry, but this is not possible.

Only empty directories and files can be removed from a directory you have write permission of.

The one and only solution is ; get root.

Regs David