directory listing of files that don't exist!

davidhaore · 10-16-2010, 09:38 PM

I think as a result of a script that started duplicating files in a loop, the allotted capacity on my VPS filled up with multiple nested copies of the same files...
After a reboot, I could delete most of them, but got rm stalled in certain directories...

after isolating which ones, I found this:
a directory listing that lists the files, and at the same time tells me they are not there!!!

partial listing:

Code:

 ls
ls: cannot access userkey.php: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access workshop.php: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access quiz.php: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access webservice_rest.php: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access qtype_essay.php: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access readme: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access portfolio.php: No such file or directory

If I stat any of those files, I get this:

Code:

stat userkey.php 
stat: cannot stat `userkey.php': No such file or directory

ls -all looks like this:

Code:

drwxr-xr-x 2 apache apache 8192 Oct 16 11:03 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 apache apache 4096 Oct 16 11:03 ..
-????????? ? ?      ?         ?            ? access.php
-????????? ? ?      ?         ?            ? activitynames.php
-????????? ? ?      ?         ?            ? admin.php
-????????? ? ?      ?         ?            ? algebra.php
-????????? ? ?      ?         ?            ? assignment.php

(this is all as root...)

So - - -

I cannot rm them, mv or cp... what else is there to do???

Thanks in advance!
David

johnshen64 · 10-16-2010, 10:42 PM

your file system is corrupt. umount it and do an fsck. if it is the root file system, you might even need to boot the system into a livecd to fsck the file system.

joec@home · 10-16-2010, 10:55 PM

Look for virtual files, identify the process that is creating the files, restart that process.

Code:

lsof |grep delete

davidhaore · 10-16-2010, 11:33 PM

hmm...
Joec: none of the 'files' show in the lsof listing... so I suppose they are not 'open'
Johnshen: I would LOVE to do fsck, but this is on my virtual server, and they (the hosts) tell me I cannot (I suppose as it's all part of the same filesystem?) Are they giving me a line, or does than make sense...?
thanks
David

johnshen64 · 10-17-2010, 08:43 AM

If you cannot fsck, can you reboot the virtual server? Can they reboot it for you? fsck is usually done automatically if there is a filesystem issue. Do you have root on the box? In any case, if someone tells you that you cannot do it, you should ask that someone to fix it.

joec@home · 10-17-2010, 08:21 PM

Yup, of lsof does not list then, get someone to run a fsck