prevent files being deleted

[Rob]

hi everyone,

Ok i have some mission critical files on a server and i need to prevent them from being deleted in anyway shape or form. Anyone know how to achieve this or is it impossible to do?

[Vin DSL]

Yeah... pretty much impossible, I'd say...

Personally, I stick my mission critical files outside the web path. That way, at least you'll have a fighting chance! I've got files, outside the web path, that have been there since I joined JagPC (4 years ago), and that's even after being moved numerous times to different servers...

[Gwaihir]

You can remove the write rights on those files (for example from shell, with chmod). That should block deleting them too.

Of course you / your applications can put those write rights back on at any time, so I don't know if that's good enough for you. If not, I suppose you could ask support to disown them from you, i.e. change ownership to 'root' and only give you (i.e. your software) read / execute rights. That should make it impossible for you and anyone using your account to delete (or change) them.

Before you do, ask yourself whether they're really finished and stable though; it also means you can't update them yourself and I don't suppose they'd be happy if you come back asking for changes every week or so.

[Rob]

ive tried chmodding them to the lowest possible value but they can still be deleted. however i will try changing the ownership of the files to root like you said. I wont need to contact support as its my server and i have the root password

[Vin DSL]

iI wont need to contact support as its my server and i have the root password

Atta boy!