how to remove a hard link...

trey85stang · 08-11-2004, 08:08 AM

I made a hard link to a file.. and now I cannot delete.. I can not figure out how to remove the hardlink either?? how do I remove it.. i rtfm's but it only says how to make one

gvec · 08-11-2004, 10:52 AM

using Fedora Core1 i just delete the link with 'rm''

ln original-file linked-filename
hardlinks linked-filename to original-file

rm linked-filename
will remove the hardlinked filename

hope that helps...

trey85stang · 08-11-2004, 11:06 AM

hmmm... I did not think your could just delete the two files.. I thought the purpose of a hardlink was so that the file could not be deleted without the hardlink being removed first?

either way I will try and rm the files. I did not even think to try that.

MikeZila · 08-11-2004, 08:08 PM

Nah. You use hardlinks (called sym [symbolic] links in *nix) to place the same file in more than one place, or even in the same directory with a different name. Deleting the original file wont delete all of the symlinks, but it will make them useless. Deleting a symlink wont touch the original file. Hope this helps.

gvec · 08-11-2004, 08:37 PM

it is my understanding that a symbolic link is a 'shortcut' pointing to the actual file whereas a hard link is the same as having another copy of the file being (hard)linked

deleting a file will render symlinks useless
deleting a file will not affect any hardlinks, any hardlinks will still point to the same data as they did before the original file was deleted

(i tested this before my initial post for accuracy just to be sure)

...it is also possible that i am confusing what is actually being asked

MikeZila · 08-11-2004, 08:39 PM

Now your cooking with gas.

patitoconejita · 07-03-2008, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gvec

it is my understanding that a symbolic link is a 'shortcut' pointing to the actual file whereas a hard link is the same as having another copy of the file being (hard)linked

deleting a file will render symlinks useless
deleting a file will not affect any hardlinks, any hardlinks will still point to the same data as they did before the original file was deleted

(i tested this before my initial post for accuracy just to be sure)

...it is also possible that i am confusing what is actually being asked

You're not confusing anything, that's accurate. MikeZila is the confusing hard and symbolic links. He thinks they're synonymous... sooner or later he'll find out they're not, probably the hard way.

jschiwal · 07-03-2008, 09:50 PM

If you create a hard link to a regular file, what you are really doing is creating another directory entry for the file. A directory entry contains a name and a pointer to the file's inode on the filesystem.

Code:

jschiwal@hpmedia:~> touch file1
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> ln file1 file2
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> ls -l file[12]
-rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:38 file1
-rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:38 file2
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> touch file3
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> ls -l file3
-rw-r--r-- 1 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:39 file3
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> ls -il file[123]
1417220 -rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:38 file1
1417220 -rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:38 file2
2756590 -rw-r--r-- 1 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:39 file3

> chgrp users file1
jschiwal@hpmedia:~> ls -l file?
-rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal users    0 2008-07-03 21:38 file1
-rw-r--r-- 2 jschiwal users    0 2008-07-03 21:38 file2
-rw-r--r-- 1 jschiwal jschiwal 0 2008-07-03 21:39 file3

Note the second column in the long listing. The kernel only removes the inode if all links to the inode are deleted. For file3, there is only 1. The third listing prints the inodes as well (-i). Note how the inodes for file1 and file2 are the same. A directory entry is actually a hard link. However creating another hard link to a directory is prohibited unless the -d or -F option is used by the root user, but the kernel deny this (CAP_LINK_DIR). This is to prevent infinite recursion in the filesystem.

Next I changed the group owner of the file1. The change also effects the group ownership of file2.

1veedo · 07-12-2008, 01:00 PM

How do you remove a hardlink? Like if you ln a file that you dont have write access to how do you remove it?

stress_junkie · 07-12-2008, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1veedo

How do you remove a hardlink? Like if you ln a file that you dont have write access to how do you remove it?

You have to obtain write access to delete a file/link. You also need write access to the directory in which the file/link resides.

Mr. C. · 07-13-2008, 03:14 AM

Hmmm...

Code:

$ ls -ld .
drwxr-xr-x  17 mrc mrc 1536 Jul 13 01:10 ./
$ touch delete.me
$ sudo chown joe:joe delete.me
$ ls -l delete.me
-rw-r--r--  1 joe joe 0 Jul 13 01:10 delete.me
$ rm delete.me
override rw-r--r--  joe/joe for 'delete.me'? y
$ ls -l delete.me
ls: delete.me: No such file or directory

stress_junkie · 07-13-2008, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. C.

Hmmm...

I am guessing that joe has write access to the directory in which this is done.

1veedo · 07-13-2008, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stress_junkie

You have to obtain write access to delete a file/link. You also need write access to the directory in which the file/link resides.

Lol so as a general user you can "create" files owned by root but you cant delete them. The file have to already exist, of course.

Mr. C. · 07-13-2008, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stress_junkie

I am guessing that joe has write access to the directory in which this is done.

Nope:

Code:

$id
uid=1007(joe) gid=1007 groups=1007
$ groups
1007

shridhar005 · 07-13-2008, 01:30 PM

1.Login as root
2.run following commands

Quote:

man rm
man hardlink

3.This will surely help you .