Osxfuse: .fuse_hidden files preventing folders being deleted
I've noticed on occasion that files are being renamed to .fuse_hidden0000xx000 files which is preventing folders being deleted. I've yet to track down exactly why but I've searched Google and found other people mentioning it so I thought I would add it here as osxfuse does it too. The files in question do not seem to be in use but I've yet to find a cause for it.
ghost
All 2 comments
Hidden files are created by the fuse high-level user-space library. Unix supports references and access to deleted files, but that's not something most fuse applications handle. So the fuse user-space library acts the same way as NFS, in that deletions are 'soft' as long as references remain. Instead of actually deleting the file, it is renamed to '.fuse_hidden...' until the last reference is released.
This is part of the FUSE user-space library, and is correct behavior. There is a hard_remove mount option for FUSE that you can use if your program allows passing in additional fuse flags (or modify the program to do so). The downside is that the filesystem would no longer have access to files that were open while deleted, so it may behave poorly.
Some filesystems will track references themselves and may disable soft deletes by default. Also, programs that use the FUSE low-level API won't do this.
vgough
on 9 Oct 2011
Thanks @vgough for explaining. Since there have not been any related bug reports, this issue is closed. @misafe if you are convinced there is a bug, please re-open the issue and provide some instructions to reproduce the issue.
bfleischer
on 14 Oct 2011
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Most helpful comment
Hidden files are created by the fuse high-level user-space library. Unix supports references and access to deleted files, but that's not something most fuse applications handle. So the fuse user-space library acts the same way as NFS, in that deletions are 'soft' as long as references remain. Instead of actually deleting the file, it is renamed to '.fuse_hidden...' until the last reference is released.
This is part of the FUSE user-space library, and is correct behavior. There is a hard_remove mount option for FUSE that you can use if your program allows passing in additional fuse flags (or modify the program to do so). The downside is that the filesystem would no longer have access to files that were open while deleted, so it may behave poorly.
Some filesystems will track references themselves and may disable soft deletes by default. Also, programs that use the FUSE low-level API won't do this.