[techtalk] Filename star

[Xavier Gutierrez Munoz]

On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, Subba Rao wrote:

>
>I have noticied a meta character named file in the root's home directory and another user's
>home directory. They were created on December 23rd. The file ownership permissions are
>perfectly normal. The dreaded meta-character is '*'.
>
>To remove this I did,
>
>$ rm -i *
>
>and got rid of it. I cannot imagine doing,
>
>$ rm *
>
>I don't know how this file got created. What is the best way to trace the creation
>of such files? I want to know the process that is creating it. External login is impossible
>to this box. It has to be one of the several tools I have downloaded and compiled.
>How do you search for files, with meta characters as their names?

	Hi there! Before all, wanna wish u all Merry Xmas and happy Y2K
effect.
	On how to create such a file, i've experienced it's quite easy. I
read Subba's question and tried it by doin'

$mv trialfile.whatever "*"

	It worked for me so I now have a file clled '*' in my root dir.
Then i though: "if i could create it this way, why not deleting it the
same way?" So i tried

$rm "*"

	And it surprisingly worked. Of course, i had many more files in my
dir and did no delete any of them. Hope it'll work for you too. Gotta
thank u 'cause now i know a little more about my system.

--
Xavier Gutierrez Muñoz  xgm at newton.fis.ucm.es


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