deleting a file

[Shivkumar]

Once i was trying to delete a file owned by me and having permission 644. i got the error message permission denied. finally i deleted as a root.

I was never able to understood why this happened ?

I know some of the unix guru on this forum will shed some light :-))

Thanks,
Shiv

[Devender Khatana · Accepted solution]

Hi Shiv,

You perhaps do not have right permissions in that directory. If you do not have that you can not delete file.

Let me know if it is not the case.

HTH,
Devender

[Devesh Pant_1]

What is the permissions on the parent directory ?
Check that out and hopefully that is it

DP

[john korterman]

Hi,

as already said: you need write permission on the directory in which the file is located in order to delete it.
The permissions on the file itself, e.g. 644, apply only to reading, writing/changing or executing the file.

regards,
John K.

[Sandman!]

Basically the dir in which that file exists should have a "w" in the "other" field of the permissions or a "w" in the "group" field if your ID is part of that group.

[Eknath]

Hi Shiv,

The process was like this

1. You created a file in a directory for which you have rwx permission.
2. After sometime the directory premission was changed to r_x. Now you cannot modify(write) to the directory...

Following are the steps how it happened
$ ll
total 0
drwx------ 2 abc users 96 Aug 14 04:47 test1
$ > test1/test2
$ chmod 500 test1
$ rm test1/test2
rm: test1/test2 not removed. Permission denied
$ ll
total 0
dr-x------ 2 abc users 96 Aug 14 04:47 test1
$ chmod 700 test1
$ rm test1/test2
$ (file deleted)

Cheers !!!
eknath

[Mahesh Kumar Malik]

Hi Shiv

Probably the parent directory does not have write permission

Regards
Mahesh