Jaco Carlson wrote:
Can you safely delete all files in /tmp?
Yes. Any files which are still in use will be in an OPEN status. The process which has the file open will have a handle to the file, and accesses the file through the handle (not the pathname). When you remove files, what actually happens is that the file is unlinked from the directory it is in (its directory entry is removed)....however, since it still has an open reference, its disk blocks will not be re-allocated until all processes which have an open file handle close their handles to the file. This functionality is actually used by some programmers -- they will open() a new file in /tmp (which creates a pathname /tmp/somefilename), then they remove the file (while still having the open file handle). This effectively hides the file from practically everything on the system -- it's a way of preventing a tmp file from accidentally being corrupted by ANY other processs (other than a super-user process writing out in kernal memory). All other files, which do NOT currently have an open file handle will be removed and re-allocated to the free list just as you would expect. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
