Linux – I have a linux file with a colon in the filename that I cannot open, rename, or delete. How to remove the colon from this filename

Four things:

Try the complement of the solution - move everything else, then remove everything.

mkdir ../everything_else
mv problematic/folder/path/* everything_else
sudo rm -rf problematic/folder/path

Make sure there is no ACL on the file, and remove any that may be causing problems:

$ /bin/ls -le problematic/folder/path
total 16
-rw-r--r--+ 1 whmcclos  staff  1918 Dec 18 09:00 README
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow read,execute,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
$ chmod -a "..."

Try a Perl script to smooth out OS/FS naming dependencies?

For instance, something along the lines of this code fragment - keep the filename in anonymous $_:

$ mkdir fred; cd fred; touch a b c d e f
$ cat > try.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
opendir(D,".") or die "cannot open .\n";
@files=readdir(D);
closedir(D);
foreach (@files) {
  next if /\.{1,2}/;                      # Skip directory entries
  print; print "? "; $r = <>; chop($r);   # Provide some level of control
  if($r eq "y" or $r eq "Y") {unlink;}    # Should report if cannot unlink unnamed file - tbd.
}
^D
$ /usr/bin/perl try.pl
a? 
b? 
c? y
d? 
e? 
f? 
$ ls
a       b       d       e       f       try.pl

[Updated to reflect authors original intent - copy the beast to a well behaved file(name):]

To see if Perl can copy the misbehaved file to a well behaved file, I'd use the below Perl script - still along the lines of the above - let Perl "anonymously" access the filename.

(Also, the ACL should really be checked; the ACL can even prevent root from normally accessing the file as root, from what I recall dealing with.]

Here's the Perl script:

$ cat try3.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
# A code fragment to ask to copy a displayed file to $TO; chg $TO on next line:
$TO="my_new_behaved_filename";       # This is the name that will be copied to
opendir(D,".") or die "cannot open .\n";
@files=readdir(D);
closedir(D);
foreach $f (@files) {
  next if $f =~ /\.{1,2}/;           # Skip directory entries, "." & ".."
  print "$f? "; $r = <>; chop($r);   # Provide some level of control; "y" or "Y"
  if($r eq "y" or $r eq "Y") {       #   to copy the displayed filename to $TO
    print "copying it to $TO...\n";
    # Now, see if we can copy the darn thing to $TO:
    open(FROM,$f) or die "sorry - couldn't open it...";
    open(TO,">$TO");
    while(read FROM, $buf, 16384) {
      print TO $buf;
    }
    close(TO);
    close(FROM);
  }
}

Which you'd use as such, assuming try3.pl is the aforementioned Perl script:

$ ./try3.pl 
a? 
b? 
d? y
copying it to my_new_behaved_filename...
e? 
f? 

Access the file through a symbolic or hard link and see what milage you get.

I'd use vi's filename [tab] expansion to try to "identify" to the shell what file you want to link to.

I moved my ~/{.vim,.viminfo,.vimrc} aside so as to restrict things, like wildmenu input. You may want to do the same.

Now, kick off the following command line sequence in the bogus file's containing folder:

$ vi

In vi, type precisely this sequence of characters

!!ln -s [tab]

So that key sequence was, in words: exclamation point, exclamation point, el, en, blank, dash, es, blank, tab. As soon as you hit the [tab] key, the first file of the current working directory should display after the blank character (following the "s") on vi's status line. Hit the [tab] key numerous times to cycle through to the bogus filename. When the bogus filename appears, press the space bar to add a space, and then type a new file/link-name.

The result on vi's status line should look something like this

!!ln -s bogus_filename new_sym_link_name

Hit the return key to see if the link command (spawned from vi to replace the current null line in vi's empty buffer, which we don't care about, here; we want the side effect of executing a shell command with tab expansion) will create the link, new_sym_link_name.

Exit vi with :q![return], and see if you can access your file through the symbolic link.

(You could also try a hard link by leaving off the -s in the above ln command.

Because I just noticed that you could change the filename through Windows, I'm thinking that somehow, a carriage-return linefeed sequence got into the filename, and that is confusing the various approaches.