[gpfsug-discuss] quickest way to delete all files (and directories) in a file system

Tina Friedrich tina.friedrich at it.ox.ac.uk
Thu Jun 30 12:31:43 BST 2022


Hello everyone,

this should be a simple question, but we can't quite figure out how to 
best proceed.

We have some file systems that we want to, basically, empty out. As in 
remove all files and directories currently on them. Both contain a 
pretty large number of files/directories (something like 50,000,000, 
with sometimes silly characters in the file names). 'rm -rf' clearly 
isn't the way to go forward.

We've come up with either 'mmapplypolicy' (i.e. a policy to remove all 
files) or removing and re-creating the file systems as options (open to 
other suggestions!).

We want the file systems still; ideally without having to redo the 
authentication and key swaps etc for the 'remote' clusters using them.

This is a Lenovo DSS, but I don't think it makes much of a difference.

So - what's the best way to proceed?

If it is mmapplypolicy - does anyone have a (tested/known working) 
example of a policy to simply remove all files?

Thanks,
Tina

-- 
Tina Friedrich, Advanced Research Computing Snr HPC Systems Administrator

Research Computing and Support Services
IT Services, University of Oxford
http://www.arc.ox.ac.uk http://www.it.ox.ac.uk




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