Sthu Deus wrote: > I have a bunch of such files: > -rw------- 1 root root 0 2010-10-26 12:14 /tmp/tmp.VpjBPrFKtT > > What can these be? From whence they come? > It seems they are created every minute after some period of days. That is the default template name from the 'mktemp' command. The mktemp command is often used in shell scripts to create temporary files. The typical use of it is to specify a different name than the default so that tracking down where they come from is easier. But here in the above someone just used the default name. This tells me that some task on your system has been added that is using mktemp to create a temporary file but is not cleaning it up afterward. This task is not a standard system task but something someone has created as an addition because all of the system tasks are well behaved and both use a name and also clean up after themselves. $ mktemp /tmp/tmp.1oeywpqtzh $ ls -ldog /tmp/tmp.1oeywpqtzh -rw------- 1 0 Dec 6 11:02 /tmp/tmp.1oeywpqtzh But in a script it would be typically used like this: trap 'rm -f $tmpfile' EXIT tmpfile=$(mktemp -t myscript.XXXXXX) || exit 1 The trap will remove the temporary file when the script exits.[1] Bob [1] Things are a little more complicated. That is the way it is supposed to work. That is the way it works in all shells except one. But 'dash' breaks this. In 'dash' you need something more complicated when I will save your eyes from at this moment.
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