1.\"- 2.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993, 1994 3.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 6.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd September 12, 2018 36.Dt RM 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm rm , 40.Nm unlink 41.Nd remove directory entries 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Op Fl f | i 45.Op Fl dIPRrvWx 46.Ar 47.Nm unlink 48.Op Fl - 49.Ar file 50.Sh DESCRIPTION 51The 52.Nm 53utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 54command line. 55If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 56input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 57output) for confirmation. 58.Pp 59The options are as follows: 60.Bl -tag -width indent 61.It Fl d 62Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 63.It Fl f 64Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 65regardless of the file's permissions. 66If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 67the exit status to reflect an error. 68The 69.Fl f 70option overrides any previous 71.Fl i 72options. 73.It Fl i 74Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 75the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 76terminal. 77The 78.Fl i 79option overrides any previous 80.Fl f 81options. 82.It Fl I 83Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a 84directory is being recursively removed. 85This is a far less intrusive option than 86.Fl i 87yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes. 88.It Fl P 89Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 90Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 91then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 92Files with multiple links will not be overwritten nor deleted 93and a warning will be issued. 94If the 95.Fl f 96option is specified, files with multiple links will also be overwritten 97and deleted. 98No warning will be issued. 99.Pp 100Specifying this flag for a read only file will cause 101.Nm 102to generate an error message and exit. 103The file will not be removed or overwritten. 104.Pp 105N.B.: The 106.Fl P 107flag is not considered a security feature 108.Pq see Sx BUGS . 109.It Fl R 110Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each 111.Ar file 112argument. 113The 114.Fl R 115option implies the 116.Fl d 117option. 118If the 119.Fl i 120option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 121each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 122is made to remove the directory). 123If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 124that directory is skipped. 125.It Fl r 126Equivalent to 127.Fl R . 128.It Fl v 129Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 130.It Fl W 131Attempt to undelete the named files. 132Currently, this option can only be used to recover 133files covered by whiteouts in a union file system (see 134.Xr undelete 2 ) . 135.It Fl x 136When removing a hierarchy, do not cross mount points. 137.El 138.Pp 139The 140.Nm 141utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 142.Pp 143It is an error to attempt to remove the files 144.Pa / , 145.Pa .\& 146or 147.Pa .. . 148.Pp 149When the utility is called as 150.Nm unlink , 151only one argument, 152which must not be a directory, 153may be supplied. 154No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 155which performs an 156.Xr unlink 2 157operation on the passed argument. 158However, the usual option-end delimiter, 159.Fl - , 160may optionally precede the argument. 161.Sh EXIT STATUS 162The 163.Nm 164utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 165or if the 166.Fl f 167option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 168removed. 169If an error occurs, 170.Nm 171exits with a value >0. 172.Sh NOTES 173The 174.Nm 175command uses 176.Xr getopt 3 177to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 178the 179.Sq Li -- 180option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 181point. 182This will allow the removal of file names that begin 183with a dash 184.Pq Sq - . 185For example: 186.Pp 187.Dl "rm -- -filename" 188.Pp 189The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 190path reference. 191For example: 192.Pp 193.Dl "rm /home/user/-filename" 194.Dl "rm ./-filename" 195.Pp 196When 197.Fl P 198is specified with 199.Fl f 200the file will be overwritten and removed even if it has hard links. 201.Sh EXAMPLES 202Recursively remove all files contained within the 203.Pa foobar 204directory hierarchy: 205.Pp 206.Dl $ rm -rf foobar 207.Pp 208Any of these commands will remove the file 209.Pa -f : 210.Bd -literal -offset indent 211$ rm -- -f 212$ rm ./-f 213$ unlink -f 214.Ed 215.Sh COMPATIBILITY 216The 217.Nm 218utility differs from historical implementations in that the 219.Fl f 220option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 221masking a large variety of errors. 222The 223.Fl v 224option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 225.Pp 226Also, historical 227.Bx 228implementations prompted on the standard output, 229not the standard error output. 230.Sh SEE ALSO 231.Xr chflags 1 , 232.Xr rmdir 1 , 233.Xr undelete 2 , 234.Xr unlink 2 , 235.Xr fts 3 , 236.Xr getopt 3 , 237.Xr symlink 7 238.Sh STANDARDS 239The 240.Nm 241command conforms to 242.St -p1003.1-2013 . 243.Pp 244The simplified 245.Nm unlink 246command conforms to 247.St -susv2 . 248.Sh HISTORY 249A 250.Nm 251command appeared in 252.At v1 . 253.Sh BUGS 254The 255.Fl P 256option assumes that the underlying storage overwrites file blocks 257when data is written to an existing offset. 258Several factors including the file system and its backing store could defeat 259this assumption. 260This includes, but is not limited to file systems that use a 261Copy-On-Write strategy (e.g. ZFS or UFS when snapshots are being used), Flash 262media that are using a wear leveling algorithm, or when the backing datastore 263does journaling, etc. 264In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files are not. 265