cannot unlink cannot remove

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 12:24 PM

I am having a problem when I try to rename or delete files. Most of our access to the server is through Samba. However, I tried rm and mv in linux and the problem is still there.

All our users are in the group associated with these files.
Permission for the files is 777.
lsattr shows no attributes.
The owner of the file and root can mv and rm.
Any other users cannot even though they they are in the same group.

The mv command results in the following messages.
mv: cannot unlink `ACH99': Operation not permitted
mv: cannot remove `ACH99': Operation not permitted

We have been running on linux/samba for over a month. I think we this problem just started in the last day or two. I am sure we would have noticed it earlier if it had been happening the whole time. I think I have only touched the smb.conf recently. None of this makes sense to me.

Help!

trickykid · 10-01-2002, 12:29 PM

Is it only that one file that you cannot use the mv command ? Do you get the same error when logged in as root and trying to move ?

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 12:46 PM

The same file for any file. Only the owner can rm or mv.

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 01:09 PM

Root can still mv and rm.
I have users running batch files that rename and delete all the time. If I don't resolve this, they don't work correctly.

moses · 10-01-2002, 01:39 PM

Does this occur anywhere on the filesystem? (try it on a file in /tmp, for
example)

Can you post the results from following:

ls -la /

ls -la /home
(you can remove the actual user directories from the output, the only
important thing is the permissions field)

Cheers,
Moses

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 02:34 PM

I have a subdirectory of home called main and a share setup for Samba that points to it. I can mv in main. The problem occurs in the subdirectory OPERATE. Here is the results of ls -l.
drwsrwsrwt 4 useridx Groupz 20480 Oct 1 14:21 OPERATE

Here is what a file and an attempt to move looks like.
-rwsrwsrwt 1 useridx Groupz 590 May 31 1995 LC5.OLD
[useridy@servername OPERATE]$ mv LC5.OLD LC5.BAK
mv: cannot unlink `LC5.OLD': Operation not permitted
mv: cannot remove `LC5.OLD': Operation not permitted

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 02:42 PM

Here is the rest of the information you asked for Moses.

[usery@servername /]$ ls -la /
total 188
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 1024 Aug 6 08:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 1024 Aug 6 08:47 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 6 08:47 .autofsck
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Apr 5 12:08 bin
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1024 Mar 26 2002 boot
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 77824 Aug 6 08:47 dev
drwxr-xr-x 48 root root 4096 Oct 1 13:25 etc
drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Aug 26 11:18 home
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Jun 21 2001 initrd
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 3072 Mar 2 2002 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Mar 2 2002 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Aug 29 2001 misc
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1024 Mar 2 2002 mnt
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 May 31 02:22 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 134 root root 0 Aug 6 08:46 proc
drwxr-x--- 17 root root 2048 Sep 20 09:48 root
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 5 12:08 sbin
drwxrwxrwt 7 root root 68608 Oct 1 13:17 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root 4096 Jul 9 15:34 usr
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 1024 Jun 27 15:15 var

[usery@servername /]$ ls -la /home
total 129
drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Aug 26 11:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 1024 Aug 6 08:47 ..
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 16384 Mar 2 2002 lost+found
drwxrwxrwx 62 root Admin 4096 Oct 1 14:20 main
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 16
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 3
drwxr-xr-x 3
drwx------ 3
drwxrwxrwx 2
drwx------ 3
drwx------ 2
drwx------ 2

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 02:46 PM

After additional testing it appears to be any subdirectory of main that has the problem.

moses · 10-01-2002, 02:47 PM

Ok, try this:

in the directory above OPERATE (main?),

chmod ug-s OPERATE
chmod ug+x OPERATE
chmod ug-s LC5.OLD
mv LC5.OLD LC5.BAK

moses · 10-01-2002, 02:50 PM

Ooops,
I didn't wait long enough to reply, but I guess doing the above would still
be informative. Of course, I forgot to mention that you should do the
chmod as root and the mv as a user who's been having problems with mv.

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 02:55 PM

Moses,

The first two lines appear to have worked.
I will have to read the documentation to understand what I did and apply it to the rest of main.

Thank You Very Much

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 03:05 PM

Ooops! Spoke too soon.
Thanks for reminding me to test from a user other than root. I should have known better. It still is not working.

Rob Ellsworth · 10-01-2002, 03:12 PM

Here is what it looked like. (The test file is now LC5.BAK because the move worked for root.)

[root@servername main]# chmod ug-s OPERATE
[root@servername main]# chmod ug+x OPERATE
[root@servername main]# cd OPERATE
[root@servername OPERATE]# chmod ug-s LC5.BAK

[usery@servername OPERATE]$ ls -l LC5.BAK
-rwxrwxrwt 1 userx Groupz 590 May 31 1995 LC5.BAK
[usery@servername OPERATE]$ mv LC5.BAK LC5.OLD
mv: cannot unlink `LC5.BAK': Operation not permitted
mv: cannot remove `LC5.BAK': Operation not permitted

moses · 10-01-2002, 03:48 PM

Ok,

try changing the sticky bit in OPERATE

chmod -t OPERATE
chmod -t LC5.BAK
become a different user
mv LC5.BAK LC5.OLD

neo77777 · 10-01-2002, 03:54 PM

That what I was going to suggest, remove the sticky bit - the purpose of sticky bit is to emphasize the ownership of the files on a filesystem, so with it in place only root or the owner of the file has perms to do whatever they should do, even having -rwxrwxrwt won't let others to write to the file.