xref: /freebsd/bin/rm/rm.1 (revision ddd5b8e9b4d8957fce018c520657cdfa4ecffad3)
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32.\"	@(#)rm.1	8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd March 15, 2013
36.Dt RM 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm rm ,
40.Nm unlink
41.Nd remove directory entries
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Nm
44.Op Fl f | i
45.Op Fl dIPRrvW
46.Ar
47.Nm unlink
48.Ar file
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Nm
52utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the
53command line.
54If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard
55input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error
56output) for confirmation.
57.Pp
58The options are as follows:
59.Bl -tag -width indent
60.It Fl d
61Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files.
62.It Fl f
63Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation,
64regardless of the file's permissions.
65If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify
66the exit status to reflect an error.
67The
68.Fl f
69option overrides any previous
70.Fl i
71options.
72.It Fl i
73Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of
74the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a
75terminal.
76The
77.Fl i
78option overrides any previous
79.Fl f
80options.
81.It Fl I
82Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a
83directory is being recursively removed.
84This is a far less intrusive option than
85.Fl i
86yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes.
87.It Fl P
88Overwrite regular files before deleting them.
89Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff,
90then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.
91Files with multiple links will not be overwritten nor deleted
92and a warning will be issued.
93If the
94.Fl f
95option is specified, files with multiple links will also be overwritten
96and deleted.
97No warning will be issued.
98.Pp
99Specifying this flag for a read only file will cause
100.Nm
101to generate an error message and exit.
102The file will not be removed or overwritten.
103.Pp
104N.B.: The
105.Fl P
106flag is not considered a security feature
107.Pq see Sx BUGS .
108.It Fl R
109Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each
110.Ar file
111argument.
112The
113.Fl R
114option implies the
115.Fl d
116option.
117If the
118.Fl i
119option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before
120each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt
121is made to remove the directory).
122If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in
123that directory is skipped.
124.Pp
125.It Fl r
126Equivalent to
127.Fl R .
128.It Fl v
129Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed.
130.It Fl W
131Attempt to undelete the named files.
132Currently, this option can only be used to recover
133files covered by whiteouts in a union file system (see
134.Xr undelete 2 ) .
135.El
136.Pp
137The
138.Nm
139utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links.
140.Pp
141It is an error to attempt to remove the files
142.Pa / ,
143.Pa .\&
144or
145.Pa .. .
146.Pp
147When the utility is called as
148.Nm unlink ,
149only one argument,
150which must not be a directory,
151may be supplied.
152No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation,
153which performs an
154.Xr unlink 2
155operation on the passed argument.
156.Sh EXIT STATUS
157The
158.Nm
159utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed,
160or if the
161.Fl f
162option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were
163removed.
164If an error occurs,
165.Nm
166exits with a value >0.
167.Sh NOTES
168The
169.Nm
170command uses
171.Xr getopt 3
172to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept
173the
174.Sq Li --
175option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that
176point.
177This will allow the removal of file names that begin
178with a dash
179.Pq Sq - .
180For example:
181.Pp
182.Dl "rm -- -filename"
183.Pp
184The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative
185path reference.
186For example:
187.Pp
188.Dl "rm /home/user/-filename"
189.Dl "rm ./-filename"
190.Pp
191When
192.Fl P
193is specified with
194.Fl f
195the file will be overwritten and removed even if it has hard links.
196.Sh EXAMPLES
197Recursively remove all files contained within the
198.Pa foobar
199directory hierarchy:
200.Pp
201.Dl $ rm -rf foobar
202.Pp
203Either of these commands will remove the file
204.Pa -f :
205.Bd -literal -offset indent
206$ rm -- -f
207$ rm ./-f
208.Ed
209.Sh COMPATIBILITY
210The
211.Nm
212utility differs from historical implementations in that the
213.Fl f
214option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of
215masking a large variety of errors.
216The
217.Fl v
218option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended.
219.Pp
220Also, historical
221.Bx
222implementations prompted on the standard output,
223not the standard error output.
224.Sh SEE ALSO
225.Xr chflags 1 ,
226.Xr rmdir 1 ,
227.Xr undelete 2 ,
228.Xr unlink 2 ,
229.Xr fts 3 ,
230.Xr getopt 3 ,
231.Xr symlink 7
232.Sh STANDARDS
233The
234.Nm
235command conforms to
236.St -p1003.2 .
237.Pp
238The simplified
239.Nm unlink
240command conforms to
241.St -susv2 .
242.Sh HISTORY
243A
244.Nm
245command appeared in
246.At v1 .
247.Sh BUGS
248The
249.Fl P
250option assumes that the underlying storage overwrites file blocks
251when data is written to an existing offset.
252Several factors including the file system and its backing store could defeat
253this assumption.
254This includes, but is not limited to file systems that use a
255Copy-On-Write strategy (e.g. ZFS or UFS when snapshots are being used), Flash
256media that are using a wear leveling algorithm, or when the backing datastore
257does journaling, etc.
258In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files are not.
259