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Asked: 2019-09-05 22:23:20 +0800 CST

how do delete file called \\.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1

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I somehow got this file \.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1 on my home dir.

Tried deleting with rm and tab completion using the following prefixes:

  1. ./\
  2. ./\.
  3. ./\.\p

but it seems to ignore this file entirely

The file is weird (ll-ing the dir):

srwxr-xr-x  X  Y          0 Aug 13 19:28 \\.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1=

and it can't be ls-d:

ls: cannot access '\.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1=': No such file or directory
files rm

3 Answers

  1. That file is a socket. It is not a real file, and takes up no space on the disk except in the directory. It's a private alternative to an internet address for services running on your computer.

    It looks like from the \\.\pipe\ part it was created by a program designed to also work with Windows. Running sudo lsof '\\.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1' within that directory will show if anything is using it.

    Personally I'd leave the file alone, though it's fine to delete if nothing is using it, and would be curious what was if still in use. However as for the many reasons why you couldn't delete it:

    Firstly tab-completion can be confused by the backslashes in the filename.

    Single quote the \\.\pipe\FC_{6D57D5C3-9CEA-4497-BE57-9E544137A437}_1, and try your ls of the file again. Notice the missing final =.

    Try using ll, then ll -p on the directory, and notice the = disappears from the file name. The = is not part of the file name, but is a file type indicator for a socket. My -p is short for --indicator-style=slash which overrides the alias ll's -F, short for --indicator-style=classify

    From info ls for --indicator-style= (the man page is incomplete):

    ‘file-type’
      Append ‘/’ for directories, ‘@’ for symbolic links, ‘|’ for
      FIFOs, ‘=’ for sockets, and nothing for regular files.  This
      is the same as the ‘--file-type’ option.
‘classify’
      Append ‘*’ for executable regular files, otherwise behave as
      for ‘file-type’.  This is the same as the ‘-F’ or ‘--classify’
      option.
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  2. If the file in question is really a regular file and not something special as suggested in the link referenced by @mook765, then there are two general approaches.

    The simplest method is to list the directory using a GUI file manager which will display the file and let you delete it by selecting it and telling it to delete the file.

    If you want to stay on the command line, then you can get the file's inode number and use that to delete it. This is explained here. You can use stat or ls -il to display the inode and find to use the inode to delete it.

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  3. You can try remove file or folder by finding the inode

    man ls ... -i, --inode print the index number of each file ...

    ls -li 7093614 -rw-r--r-- 1 moi moi 0 Sep 12 16:40 test

    find . -inum 7093614 -exec rm -i {} \;

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