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Removing directory with leading hyphen from root directory

 
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# 1  
Old 02-04-2015
Removing directory with leading hyphen from root directory
I know that this basic question has been asked many times and solutions all over the internet, but none of the are working for me. I have a directory in the root directory, named "-p".

Code:
[root@vbpsdev /]# ls -l /
total 198
<snip>
drwxr-xr-x   4 root   root      4096 Dec  3 14:18 opt
drwxr-xr-x   2 root   root      4096 Dec  2 14:09 -p
dr-xr-xr-x 129 root   root         0 Feb  4 08:33 proc
<snip>

Several different variations on trying to delete it.

Code:
[root@vbpsdev /]# pwd
/
[root@vbpsdev /]# rm /-p
rm: cannot lstat `/-p': No such file or directory
[root@vbpsdev /]# rmdir /-p
rmdir: /-p: No such file or directory
[root@vbpsdev /]# rm -fR -- -p
[root@vbpsdev /]# ll
<snip>
drwxr-xr-x   4 root   root      4096 Dec  3 14:18 opt
drwxr-xr-x   2 root   root      4096 Dec  2 14:09 -p
dr-xr-xr-x 129 root   root         0 Feb  4 08:33 proc

Try to remove by inode. First, find the inode
Code:
[root@vbpsdev /]# ls -li
<snip>
1702273 drwxr-xr-x   4 root   root      4096 Dec  3 14:18 opt
1767745 drwxr-xr-x   2 root   root      4096 Dec  2 14:09 -p
      1 dr-xr-xr-x 129 root   root         0 Feb  4 08:33 proc

Then use 'find' for a 'rm', first, use an 'ls' instead of 'rm', to confirm what the 'find' finds

Code:
[root@vbpsdev /]# find . -inum 1767745 -exec ls -li {} \;
find: ./proc/5734/task/5734/fd/4: No such file or directory
find: ./proc/5734/task/5734/fdinfo/4: No such file or directory
find: ./proc/5734/fd/4: No such file or directory
find: ./proc/5734/fdinfo/4: No such file or directory
total 0

# 2  
Old 02-04-2015
I suspect it's named -p\n or some other such garbage or else you'd have been able to remove it with rmdir /-p.

If it's an empty folder, ls -li won't show anything. -d tells it to show the folder itself instead of its contents.

Use -xdev to prevent it from leaving the root partition (and avoid those errors).

Many commands will accept -- to mean 'treat everything after this as an argument, not a flag' in case ls decides to consider it as the 'indicator style' option instead of an argument.

Code:
find . -xdev -inum 1767745 -exec ls -lid -- {} \;

This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
edstevens
# 3  
Old 02-04-2015
Took a couple of tries to get the perfect combo, but that was it.

Code:
[root@vbpsdev /]# find . -xdev -inum 1767745 -exec ls -lid -- {} \;
1767745 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec  2 14:09 ./-p
[root@vbpsdev /]# find . -xdev -inum 1767745 -exec rm -- {} \;
rm: cannot remove `./-p': Is a directory
[root@vbpsdev /]# find . -xdev -inum 1767745 -exec rmdir -- {} \;
find: ./-p: No such file or directory
[root@vbpsdev /]# find . -xdev -inum 1767745 -exec rm -fR -- {} \;
[root@vbpsdev /]# ll
<snip>
drwxr-xr-x   4 root   root      4096 Dec  3 14:18 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 123 root   root         0 Feb  4 08:33 proc

Thanks for the assistance.
This User Gave Thanks to edstevens For This Post:
Corona688
 
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