clearing out /tmp safely

[Robert]

Tom 'Needs A Hat' Mitchell wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 11:47:55AM -0600, Robert wrote:
> 
>>Tom Needs a Hat Mitchell wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 12:49:31AM -0300, Alexandre Strube wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hello Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I would like to clean out my /tmp partition as per the tip at 
> 
> ....
> 
>>>Cleaning out /tmp /var/tmp by hand should be unnecessary beyond removing 
>>>the
>>>occasional big junk file.
>>>
>>>See:  /etc/cron.daily/tmpwatch
> 
> 
> 
>>to verify that cron.daily was working. It was.
>>Then I tried executing (as root)
>>
>>[root at mavis root]# /usr/sbin/tmpwatch 240 /tmp
>>
>>and I *still* have a bunch of old files in /tmp
>>
>>[root at mavis root]# find /tmp -ctime +10 | wc -l
>>    613
> 
> 
> Are you finding files or directories.
> I do see a list of empty dirs that make /tmp look untidy.
> An "rmdir /tmp/* " cleans out only the empty ones.
> 
> 
> 
There are both directories and files. Here's an example of files:

[root at mavis root]# ls -l /tmp | grep -v ^d | grep track
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     296769536 Jan 26 19:06 track-01.img
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          521 Nov 14 11:10 track-01.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     30604268 Nov 14 11:10 track-01.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          292 Jan 26 19:06 track-01.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          504 Nov 14 11:10 track-02.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     34017020 Nov 14 11:10 track-02.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          319 Nov 15 12:25 track-02.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          511 Nov 14 11:10 track-03.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     29741084 Nov 14 11:10 track-03.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          326 Nov 15 12:25 track-03.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          502 Nov 14 11:10 track-04.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     28468652 Nov 14 11:10 track-04.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          317 Nov 15 12:25 track-04.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          493 Nov 14 11:10 track-05.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     38377628 Nov 14 11:10 track-05.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          308 Nov 15 12:25 track-05.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          501 Nov 14 11:10 track-06.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     33325532 Nov 14 11:10 track-06.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          316 Nov 15 12:25 track-06.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          501 Nov 14 11:10 track-07.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     24950060 Nov 14 11:11 track-07.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          316 Nov 15 12:25 track-07.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          511 Nov 14 11:10 track-08.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     29400044 Nov 14 11:11 track-08.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          326 Nov 15 12:25 track-08.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          503 Nov 14 11:10 track-09.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     31368668 Nov 14 11:11 track-09.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          317 Nov 15 12:25 track-09.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          506 Nov 14 11:10 track-10.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     31796732 Nov 14 11:11 track-10.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          320 Nov 15 12:25 track-10.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          504 Nov 14 11:10 track-11.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     13834508 Nov 14 11:11 track-11.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          318 Nov 15 12:25 track-11.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          512 Nov 14 11:10 track-12.inf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root     29364764 Nov 14 11:11 track-12.wav
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          326 Nov 15 12:25 track-12.xinf
-rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          297 Jan 26 19:06 track.toc
[root at mavis root]#

I'm gonna try something for tonight.  I'll create a new file, chmod it 
to 666, touch it to have the same date as track-12.wav above and see if 
that bugger goes away overnight. Like this:

[root at mavis root]# echo "abcdefghijklmnopqrstetc" > /tmp/zzzA-test-file.txt
[root at mavis root]# touch /tmp/zzzA-test-file.txt 
--reference=/tmp/track-12.wav
[root at mavis root]# chmod 666 /tmp/zzzA*
[root at mavis root]# ls -l /tmp/zzzA*
-rw-rw-rw-    1 root     root           24 Nov 14 11:11 
/tmp/zzzA-test-file.txt
[root at mavis root]# touch /tmp/zzzA-test-file.txt 
--reference=/tmp/track-12.wav
[root at mavis root]#

Now.  I won't even look at the /tmp directory until tomorrow morning.

Y'know, sometimes this stuff is more fun to look back at than forward to!