Ubuntu – Delete the parent folder keeping the contained files

When a file / dir has special characters and won't delete, you can try to remove it using it's inode number more information on inodes in ext3.

To do so,

1. open a terminal window.
2. Change directory cd to the location of the files or directories with the "special characters".

3. Run

   ls -lbdRi *
   1312883 drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 Aug 31 11:49 special-character`
   

   Note the "inode" number (Here 1312883)

4. Then run a find and remove on that "inode"

    find . -inum 1312883 -exec rm -rf {} \;
    find: ``./special-character': No such file or directory
   

5. and then to make sure that is has gone.

    ls -lbdRi *
    ls: cannot access *: No such file or directory
   

I hope that this helps.

Try this procedure.

Create shared folder and give right permission:

  mkdir /pathYouWant/share
  chmod 770 /pathYouWant/share

This gives no access to other.

  chmod +t /pathYouWant/share

This mode, according to chmod manual page:

   The  restricted  deletion  flag  or  sticky  bit is a single bit, whose
   interpretation depends on the file type.  For directories, it  prevents
   unprivileged  users  from  removing or renaming a file in the directory
   unless they  own  the  file  or  the  directory

As told by Marty Fried files created in the share folder should have the right permissions and this can be achieved with samba share masks in smb.conf:

  create mask = 440
  directory mask = 550

Windows programs shouldn't try to remove read-only files unless delete readonly option is set to yes.

  delete readonly = no

Also if you want to hide all file in share folder:

  veto files = /*/
  delete veto files = no

According to samba manual these directive:

What happens if the user tries to delete a directory that contains vetoed files? This is where the delete veto files option comes in. If this Boolean option is set to yes, the user can delete both the regular files and the vetoed files in the directory, and the directory itself is removed. If the option is set to no, the user cannot delete the vetoed files, and consequently the directory is not deleted either. From the user's perspective, the directory appears empty, but cannot be removed.

After this configuration, the only problem left is that user can still delete his/her own files even if he/she do not see it (It is unclear to us why).

So we decide to follow the_Seppi suggestion to complete the task and Bram Driesen did a script that changes file ownership to the host pc.

He used incron to fire the script whenever a file is placed in the folder, following this as guide to set it up.