Removing a file using inode number

Note: All the commands given here are tried in AIX. Respective commands (may be command options) may differ for various flavors of UNIX.

Issue:

Unable to remove a file even after having all the permissions. The command rm –R <filename> in an AIX server giving error like file does not exist and were not able to do any operation on the file.

Operations tried on the file:

root@mybox# ls –ld myfile

ls: 0653-341 The file myfile does not exist.

root@mybox# ls -ld *myfile*    #to check if there is any hidden characters in file

ls: 0653-341 The file *myfile* does not exist.

You may use ls –lq or ls –lb for showing non-printing characters

root@mybox# cd myfile

ksh: myfile:  not found.

But, ls –l showing the file name and consuming the file system space.

root@mybox# ls –l

total 272

------------------------Truncated----------------

drwxr-x---   6 root      system             512 Mar 23 2009  myfile

------------------------Truncated----------------

Solution:

1) Find i-node number of the file

root@mybox#ls –i

------------------------Truncated----------------

180227 drwxr-x---   6 root      system             512 Mar 23 2009  myfile

------------------------Truncated----------------

2) Confirm the inode

root@mybox# find . -inum 180227 -ls

180227    4 drwxr-x---  6 root      system             512 Mar 23  2009 ./myfile

        

3) Unlink respective inode with the file/directory.

root@mybox# find . -inum 180227 -exec rm {} \;