Unix Shell Basics

[albert]

Just starting using a VPS account on Jaguar. There support copied one of my directories and I can not delete it since it is protected. I logged in via command line and tried "rm -r dirname" but that did not work.

Also what shell is Jaguar using by default? I looked in Google and was told to look in /etc/shells for shells available but did not find that directory.

Thanks for any help to get me going.

[Vin DSL]

Who owns the directory -- "nobody", so called?

[albert]

Sorry not sure what your asking. It is a directory within my public_html, which Jaguar support created which is a backup of another directory they did before trying to fix an issue for me. So if Jaguar support created it then it could have permissions that I could not affect? Any suggestions on shell commands I should try?

[Vin DSL]

The directory has an owner - either yourself - nobody - root, et cetera.

In the past, files and directories owned by "nobody" were hard to delete, but you could do this by using the cPanel File Manager, since it was "nobody".

Anyway, I was just wondering if the directory that you're trying to delete is actually owned by you, "nobody", "root" or whomever.

Make sense?

[albert]

The owner is listed as "root", the owner group is listed as "root". When I log into the VPS as root though I can not get to the directory, I don't believe. Is this something support has to delete?

[Vin DSL]

Is this something support has to delete?

Yes, I would *think* so.

Never hurts to contact them...

[albert]

Will do. Only problem is they always fix things and don't tell me how it is done. Was hoping to learn something in the process (smile!)... Thanks so much for your time.

[st1905]

If you want to delete a directory, you can always force to do it by the following command

rm -rf *directory-name*

Or you can use a ssh program to delete that directory via gui inteface of windows machine ...ie wincsp.

Contacting support is the easiest way to solve problems in here (They are really very very good at technical things and also very polite) but i thinnk you can do it yourself.

Regards,

[Spathiphyllum]

Is the owner (as in the customer paying the bill and not a chown-type ownage) of a VPS not given a 'root' account with full 'root' privileges? I figured a VPS was block of resources that was so isolated that it was basically a mini-server and that root capabilities were in the default account. Is this incorrect even though there might exist a 'superduper root' in the VPS segmentation software that trumps even the traditional 'root'?

[Gwaihir]

The owner is listed as "root", the owner group is listed as "root". When I log into the VPS as root though I can not get to the directory, I don't believe.

Strange. Could you elaborate on 'can not get to'? Are you denied permission, or having trouble finding it?