Question

I generate a file in the tmp directory of my root server.

touch "sync.txt"
chmod 777 "sync.txt"

and I try to delete it with python like this

os.remove('/tmp/sync.txt')

but I always get this error

exceptions.OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/sync.txt'

I thought this would be solved by settings the file permission to 777 but I still have this problem.

When I make

chmod 777 /tmp

instead I get another error:

exceptions.OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/tmp/sync.txt'

However the file is deleted.

Any idea whats wrong? How can I fix that exception?

Answer 1

If /tmp is marked sticky (chmod a+t) then only the superuser or the owner of the directory or file within it will be able to delete it, regardless of what permissions the file has.