1.\" $NetBSD: rm.1,v 1.24 2006/09/02 23:28:32 wiz Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993, 1994, 2003 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 7.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 8.\" 9.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 10.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 11.\" are met: 12.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 14.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 15.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 16.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 17.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 18.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 19.\" without specific prior written permission. 20.\" 21.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 22.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 23.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 24.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 25.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 26.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 27.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 28.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 29.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 30.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 31.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 32.\" 33.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 34.\" 35.Dd August 25, 2006 36.Dt RM 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm rm 40.Nd remove directory entries 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl f | Fl i 44.Op Fl dPRrvW 45.Ar 46.Sh DESCRIPTION 47The 48.Nm 49utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 50command line. 51If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 52input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 53output) for confirmation. 54.Pp 55The options are as follows: 56.Bl -tag -width flag 57.It Fl d 58Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 59.It Fl f 60Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 61regardless of the file's permissions. 62If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 63the exit status to reflect an error. 64The 65.Fl f 66option overrides any previous 67.Fl i 68options. 69.It Fl i 70Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 71the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 72terminal. 73The 74.Fl i 75option overrides any previous 76.Fl f 77options. 78.It Fl P 79Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 80Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 81then 0x00, and then with random data, before they are deleted. 82Some care is taken to ensure that the data are actually written to 83disk, but this cannot be guaranteed, even on traditional filesystems; 84on log-structured filesystems or if any block-journaling scheme is 85in use, this option is completely useless. 86If the file cannot be 87overwritten, it will not be removed. 88.It Fl R 89Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 90The 91.Fl R 92option implies the 93.Fl d 94option. 95If the 96.Fl i 97option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 98each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 99is made to remove the directory). 100If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 101that directory is skipped. 102.Pp 103.It Fl r 104Equivalent to 105.Fl R . 106.It Fl v 107Cause 108.Nm 109to be verbose, showing files as they are processed. 110.It Fl W 111Attempts to undelete the named files. 112Currently, this option can only be used to recover 113files covered by whiteouts. 114.El 115.Pp 116The 117.Nm 118utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 119.Pp 120It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 121.Sh EXIT STATUS 122The 123.Nm 124utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 125or if the 126.Fl f 127option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 128removed. 129If an error occurs, 130.Nm 131exits with a value \*[Gt]0. 132.Sh EXAMPLES 133.Nm 134uses 135.Xr getopt 3 136standard argument processing. 137Removing filenames that begin with a dash 138.Pq e.g., Ar -file 139in the current directory which might otherwise be taken as option flags to 140.Nm 141can be accomplished as follows: 142.Pp 143.Ic "rm -- -file" 144.Pp 145or 146.Pp 147.Ic "rm ./-file" 148.Sh SEE ALSO 149.Xr rmdir 1 , 150.Xr undelete 2 , 151.Xr unlink 2 , 152.Xr fts 3 , 153.Xr getopt 3 , 154.Xr symlink 7 155.Sh BUGS 156The 157.Fl P 158option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 159system. 160FFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 161In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 162are not. 163Recent research indicates that as many as 35 overwrite passes with 164carefully chosen data patterns may be necessary to actually prevent 165recovery of data from a magnetic disk. 166Thus the 167.Fl P 168option is likely both insufficient for its design purpose and far 169too costly for default operation. 170However, it will at least prevent the recovery of data from FFS 171volumes with 172.Xr fsdb 8 . 173.Sh COMPATIBILITY 174The 175.Nm 176utility differs from historical implementations in that the 177.Fl f 178option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 179masking a large variety of errors. 180.Pp 181Also, historical 182.Bx 183implementations prompted on the standard output, 184not the standard error output. 185.Sh STANDARDS 186The 187.Nm 188utility is expected to be 189.St -p1003.2 190compatible. 191The 192.Fl v 193option is an extension. 194.Pp 195The 196.Fl P 197option attempts to conform to U.S. DoD 5220-22.M, "National Industrial 198Security Program Operating Manual" ("NISPOM") as updated by Change 1992 and the July 23, 2003 "Clearing \*[Am] Sanitization Matrix". 200However, unlike earlier revisions of NISPOM, the 2003 matrix imposes 201requirements which make it clear that the standard does not and 202can not apply to the erasure of individual files, in particular 203requirements relating to spare sector management for an entire 204magnetic disk. 205.Em Because these requirements are not met, the 206.Fl P 207.Em option does not conform to the standard . 208