Re: Undeletable File Causing Massive Headaches

[Anthony Wong <hajime@asunaro.dhs.org>]

Eliot Landrum <eliot@landrum.cx> wrote:
EL> Finally! Some real assistance! :)
EL> 
EL> Strangely enough though, lsattr is just sitting here ... I'm not sure if
EL> this is normal or not. I'll let it sit for >30 min to make sure it has
EL> enough time to do whatever it is it is doing. 
EL> 
EL> What exactly is an immutable file though?

>From the changelog of linux's ext2 fs source:
                                                         
    - New file attributes:
      - Immutable files cannot be modified.  Data cannot be written to
        these files.  They cannot be removed, renamed and new links cannot
        be created.  Even root cannot modify the files.  He has to remove
        the immutable attribute first.
      - Append-only files: can only be written in append-mode when writing.
        They cannot be removed, renamed and new links cannot be created.
        Note: files may only be added to an append-only directory.
      - No-dump files: the attribute is not used by the kernel.  My port
        of dump uses it to avoid backing up files which are not important.
 
-- 
Anthony Wong.