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Manual Reference Pages  - TMPWATCH (8)

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tmpwatch - removes files which haven’t been accessed for a period of time

CONTENTS

Synopsis
Description
Options
See Also
Warnings
Authors

tmpwatch [-u|-m|-c] [-faqstv] [--verbose] [--force] [--all] [--test]
[--fuser] [--atime|--mtime|--ctime] [--quiet]
[--exclude <path>] <hours> <dirs>

tmpwatch recursively removes files which haven’t been accessed for a given number of hours. Normally, it’s used to clean up directories which are used for temporary holding space such as /tmp.

When changing directories, tmpwatch is very sensitive to possible race conditions and will exit with an error if one is detected. It does not follow symbolic links in the directories it’s cleaning (even if a symbolic link is given as its argument), will not switch filesystems,
and only removes empty directories and regular files.

By default, tmpwatch dates files by their atime (access time), not their mtime (modification time). If files aren’t being removed when ls -l implies they should be, use ls -u to examine their atime to see if that explains the problem.

If the --atime, --ctime or --mtime options are used in combination, the decision about deleting a file will be based on the maximum of these times.

The hours parameter defines the threshold for removing files. If the file has not been accessed for hours hours, the file is removed. Following this, one or more directories may be given for tmpwatch to clean up.

-u, --atime
	Make the decision about deleting a file based on the file’s atime (access time). This is the default.
-m, --mtime
	Make the decision about deleting a file based on the file’s mtime (modification time) instead of the atime.
-c, --ctime
	Make the decision about deleting a file based on the file’s ctime (inode change time) instead of the atime; for directories, make the decision based on the mtime.
-a, --all	Remove all file types, not just regular files and directories.
-d, --nodirs
	Do not attempt to remove directories, even if they are empty.
-f, --force
	Remove files even if root doesn’t have write access (akin to rm -f).
-t, --test
	Doesn’t remove files, but goes through the motions of removing them. This implies -v.
-s, --fuser
	Attempt to use the "fuser" command to see if a file is already open before removing it. Not enabled by default. Does help in some circumstances, but not all. Dependent on fuser being installed in /sbin. Not supported on HP-UX or Solaris.
-v, --verbose
	Print a verbose display. Two levels of verboseness are available -- use this option twice to get the most verbose output.
-x, --exclude=path
	Skip absolute path; if path is a directory, all files contained in it are skipped too. The directories to clean up must also be absolute paths.

cron(1), ls(1), rm(1), fuser(1)

GNU-style long options are not supported on HP-UX.

Erik Troan <ewt@redhat.com>
Preston Brown <pbrown@redhat.com>
Nalin Dahyabhai <nalin@redhat.com>
Miloslav Trmac <mitr@redhat.com>

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