But, here it goes.

Ok, so I made a bit of a mistake with tar, and now I have a 500MB file in the root of the / directory called -X:
[root@mail /]# ls -al
total 514268
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 525977600 Oct 18 11:12 -X
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4096 Oct 18 11:11 .
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4096 Oct 18 11:11 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 9 20:32 bin
<snip>


Now, I've obviously tried this:

[root@mail mail]# rm -X
rm: invalid option -- X
Try `rm --help' for more information.
[root@mail mail]#

And I've tried it in quotes:

[root@mail mail]# rm "-X"
rm: invalid option -- X
Try `rm --help' for more information.
[root@mail mail]#

Same thing. I've tried rm *x:

rm *X
rm: invalid option -- X
Try `rm --help' for more information.
[root@mail /]#


So anyway, how in the heck do I get rid of this file? I've got plenty of space on the disk, but it ticks me off, plus it gets written into the backup every night which is stored on another server via nfs, which causes excess network traffic and hogs space on that box as well. If anyone can point out hoe to make this gone, I'd REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks,
Mark

rm -- -X

The '--' signifies the end of options.

It worked. I salute you. Thanks a bunch!

I'm so happy now. I knew someone would know.

Thanks,
Mark

you could have also done rm "-X"

he seemed to have tried that.
notsoevil i think in this case gave one of the few ways to remove this file.

this is the last time, i browse the questions, without my coffee first thing in the morning..

I could have used that -- option a while ago. I was struggling with the same problem. I managed to delete the file by logging in through ftp and then giving the delete command. But using the -- would have been a nicer way to do things.
Always so much to learn about linux.