how to remove a busy file?

wweiy · 01-15-2007, 06:46 AM

hi all,

when i type ls -la, it shows the files for current directory:
drwxr-x--- 2 wooi4 eng 4096 2007-01-15 20:35 .
drwxr-x--- 3 wooi4 eng 4096 2007-01-15 19:07 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 wooi4 eng 39359193 2007-01-11 15:02 .nfs0173b13600000024

when i want to delete the file,i type "rm .nfs0173b13600000024" (or with an option), it shows the following error message:
rm: cannot remove `.nfs0173b13600000024': Device or resource busy

how can i remove the file ".nfs0173b13600000024"?

thanks for any help

trickykid · 01-15-2007, 06:51 AM

Find out what application is using it with lsof and kill the process accessing it.

mblames · 01-15-2007, 08:07 PM

#lsof |grep -i <any_file>
to find out the process
#kill -9 <pid>
to terminate the program

wweiy · 01-15-2007, 09:29 PM

thanks a lot, it really solved my problem..

ggevorg · 07-20-2018, 07:08 AM

Hi folks
For removed all busy files I have write Bash script

Code:

# #!/usr/local/bin/bash
clear

echo "#################################"
echo "##########START SCRIPT###########"
echo "#################################"

cd
nfs_file_path=()

while IFS=  read -r -d $'\0'; do
    nfs_file_path+=("$REPLY")
done < <(find . -name ".nfs*" -print0)
for line in "${nfs_file_path[@]}"; do
  nfs_id=()
#   echo "$line"
  nfs_ip="$(lsof | grep -i "$line")"
  IFS="      " read -r -a nfs_id <<< $nfs_ip
  echo "${nfs_id[1]}"
  kill_result="$(kill -9 ${nfs_id[1]})"
  if [$kill_result != ""]
  then
      (rm -rf $line)
  fi
done


echo "#################################"
echo "###########END SCRIPT############"
echo "#################################"

MadeInGermany · 07-22-2018, 02:21 AM

Traditional shells do not have arrays because
THERE IS HARDLY NO GOOD USE OF ARRAYS IN SHELLS.

Code:

while IFS=  read -r -d $'\0'; do
    nfs_file_path+=("$REPLY")
done < <(find . -name ".nfs*" -print0)
for line in "${nfs_file_path[@]}"; do
    ...
done

Can be simplified

Code:

while IFS=  read -r -d $'\0' line; do
    ...
done < <(find . -name ".nfs*" -print0)

Further, an fgrep (or grep -F) is more precise, because the dot is a literal dot, not a wildcard.

Code:

    nfs_ip=$(lsof | fgrep "$line")

Finally, consider the following "oldie":

Code:

    fuser -k "$line"
    sleep 1
    rm -f "$line"

indukriti · 01-29-2024, 09:05 PM

How can i get the PID info to delete the file/dir
have checked busy file using this

lsof | grep -i <filename>

dgcom_exe 32164 32296 username 1025uw REG 0,85 200 1534107745 dirpath/filename/.nfs000000005b70a06100000962 (website name:/TCASE)

let me know which one is pid here
to kill process using
kill -9 pid

thanks in advance

dugan · 01-30-2024, 09:01 AM

The “fuser” command also works, if you don’t like lsof.

pan64 · 01-30-2024, 02:29 PM

the suggestion is not really good (post #3), but anyway you can use fuser to find which pid is currently using the given file. You can decide if you really want to exit that app (not kill) or use it.
.nfs stands for remote access, so you may need to consider that as well.