Usually whenever I remove directories, "rm -rf " works. But sometimes I get this response:
"rm: examine files in directory / (yes/no)?"
Then I try "\rm -rf ", and that works. Can anyone explain why?
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If it asks you whether to examine the files in '/', do you say 'yes' or 'no'? And does the machine continue to work afterwards? Be very careful about deleting everything under root when running as root; the machine keeps going for a surprisingly long time, but there comes a point at which you have to reboot - off a CD or something similar.– Jonathan LefflerFeb 7, 2010 at 3:13
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4 Answers
Someone, either your system administrator or your linux distribution (you didn't specify what form of unix you are using) has aliased rm to rm -i. Take a look at what man rm says:
-i Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a terminal. The -i option overrides any previous -f options.
You can see the actual binding of any command with the which command: which rm will say something like:
rm: mapped to rm -i
To execute the real rm, type \rm, as you have already discovered.
your rm command is alias, most likely rm -i.
check your shell alias.
Also consider calling it as: yes | rm -rf
Most of the new linux distro are making safy aliases
usually the rm command is aliased to rm -i.
You can remove that alias if you don't need it by doing rm='rm', also to make it automatic take a look at bash configuration files.
Good luck
