rm (command)

wikipedia:rm (Unix) included in coreutils package is used to remove different type objects such as computer files, directories and symbolic links from file systems and also special files such as device nodes, pipes and sockets.

The rm command removes references to objects from the filesystem using the unlink system call.

Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/rm.1.html

Examples

rm /path/to/your/file

rm -rf

echo "" > /path/to/the/file.log

If it was already deleted, on Linux, you can still truncate it by doing:
echo "" > "/proc/$pid/fd/$fd"

rm: cannot remove 'XXXX': Read-only file system

Related terms

• find /path/to/directory/ -mindepth 1 -mtime +5 -delete
• truncate
• lsof -a +L1 /path/to/fs
• Files open but deleted: lsof -nP | grep deleted
• Set file to zero: truncate -s 0 /path/to/filename
• unlink
• echo
• inode
• touch
• scrub
• shred
• mtime
• coreutils
• block
• virsh undefine
• vgremove
• podman machine rm
• docker rm
• docker-compose rm
• docker buildx rm

Activities

• Read about rm performance
• Read about ZFS rm "expensive" operations: https://serverfault.com/a/801080
• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/rm?tab=Votes

See also

• rm, System Integrity Protection, truncate, scrub, shred, unlink, git rm, find -delete