Which of the following commands can be used to resolve this issue?

A developer has been unable to remove a particular data folder that a team no longer uses. The developer escalated the issue to the systems administrator.

The following output was received:

Which of the following commands can be used to resolve this issue?
A . chgrp -R 755 data/
B . chmod -R 777 data/
C . chattr -R -i data/
D . chown -R data/

View Answer

Answer: C

Explanation:

The command that can be used to resolve the issue of being unable to remove a particular data folder is chattr -R -i data/. This command will use the chattr utility to change file attributes on a Linux file system. The -R option means that chattr will recursively change attributes of directories and their contents. The -i option means that chattr will remove (unset) the immutable attribute from files or directories. When a file or directory has the immutable attribute set, it cannot be modified, deleted, or renamed.

The other options are not correct commands for resolving this issue. The chgrp -R 755 data/ command will change the group ownership of data/ and its contents recursively to 755, which is not a valid group name. The chgrp command is used to change group ownership of files or directories. The chmod -R 777 data/ command will change the file mode bits of data/ and its contents recursively to 777, which means that everyone can read, write, and execute them. However, this will not remove the immutable attribute, which prevents deletion or modification regardless of permissions. The chmod command is used to change file mode bits of files or directories. The chown -R data/ command is incomplete and will produce an error. The chown command is used to change the user and/or group ownership of files or directories, but it requires at least one argument besides the file name.

References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 7: Managing Disk Storage; chattr(1) – Linux manual page; chgrp(1) – Linux manual page; chmod(1) – Linux manual page; chown(1) – Linux manual page