SysIII/usr/src/man/man1/clri.1m

.TH CLRI 1M
.SH NAME
clri \- clear i-node
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B clri
file-system i-number ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Clri\^
writes zeros on the 64 bytes occupied by the i-node
numbered
.IR i-number .
.I File-system\^
must be a special file
name referring to a device
containing a file system.
After
.I clri\^
is executed,
any blocks
in the affected file
will show up as ``missing'' in an
.IR fsck (1M)
of the
.IR file-system .
This command should only be used in
emergencies and extreme care should be exercised.
.PP
Read and write permission is required on the specified
.I file-system\^
device.
The i-node becomes allocatable.
.PP
The primary purpose of this routine
is to remove a file which
for some reason appears in no
directory.
If it is used to
.I zap\^
an i-node
which does appear in a directory, care should be taken to track down
the entry and remove it.
Otherwise, when the i-node is reallocated to some new file,
the old entry will still point to that file.
At that point removing the old entry will destroy the new file.
The new entry will again point to an unallocated i-node,
so the whole cycle is likely to be repeated again and again.
.SH SEE ALSO
fsck(1M),
fsdb(1M),
ncheck(1M),
fs(5).
.SH BUGS
If the file is open,
.I clri\^
is likely to be ineffective.