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From: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: cleaning up /tmp (was Re: files recovery after rm?)
Message-ID: <815@ccssrv.UUCP>
Date: 11 Nov 89 02:14:00 GMT
References: <16608@uhnix1.uh.edu> <20530@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <1989Nov9.162314.4713@virtech.uucp> <20551@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Reply-To: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Organization: Control-C Software, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 17

In article <20551@unix.cis.pitt.edu> yahoo@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Kenneth L Moore)
writes:

>This should be addressed by the systems people. I would think that a
>program to clean /tmp on an as needed basis would be appropriate.

>I have logged in a week after writing to /tmp and found files still there.

SunOS, and probably others, clean /tmp on a reboot.  That is the only time
when a complete cleanout is known to be safe without a lot of checking.

It is certainly possible, and probably advisable, to have a script which
removes anything in /tmp which has not been {accessed|modified} (pick one)
in, say, a week.  Such a script can be run by cron in the wee hours.

Before you ask the obvious followup questions, read the man pages for find(1)
and cron(8).