# The Answer Gang 65: I was wondering

# The Answer Gang

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### I was wondering

From andrew

Answered By Mike Orr

i see a number of suspicious files in my proc directory.For example there is a directory that is called 6 & when i look in this folder i see i number of files eg

    [root@echelon 6]# ls -la
    ls: exe: Permission denied
    ls: root: Permission denied
    ls: cwd: Permission denied
    total 0
    dr-xr-xr-x    3 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:28 .
    dr-xr-xr-x   89 root     root            0 Mar 26 07:32 ..
    -r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 cmdline
    lrwx------    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 cwd
    -r--------    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 environ
    lrwx------    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 exe
    dr-x------    2 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 fd
    pr--r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 maps
    -rw-------    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 mem
    lrwx------    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 root
    -r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 stat
    -r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 statm
    -r--r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 26 14:29 status

> [Mike] This is normal. See "man proc".

Notice the permission denied on those 3 files. Why is this if i am root??.

> [Mike] I get this error when I'm not root but not if I am root. The three "files" are symbolic links to other directories. So it would depend what the permissions of those "other" directories are.

I cant delete them or change anything about them. What would you suggest?? I mean they are links to other files so why can i just unlink them.

> [Mike] You shouldn't try to change or unlink them. The directory will disappear when process 6 dies.

> To see for yourself that nothing funny is going on, run "umount `/proc`" as root. (If you get a "Device Busy" error, it probably means some process has its current directory inside `/proc.` You cannot unmount a filesystem if somebody's current directory is inside it.) The `/proc` directory should be empty now. Run "mount `/proc`" or "mount -t proc proc `/proc`" and the "files" should reappear.

Also as a side note do you have any idea that when im in shell within this directory that those 3 files are flashing??

> [Mike] That's part of the color configuration of the 'ls' command. Usually, flashing means it's a dead symbolic link (a link pointing to a nonexistent file). If it's inside `/proc`, I would assume the kernel knows what it's doing and not worry about it.

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Published in issue 65 of Linux Gazette April 2001

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