How to prevent users from deleting a directory?

I tried “chattr +i DIRNAME”, it’s great, but I cannot create files in the DIR after chattr. What else are there to prevent users from deleting a Directory?

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="0a7865657e4a4245595e">[email protected]</a> ~] mkdir test
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b8cad7d7ccf8f0f7ebec">[email protected]</a> ~] chattr +i test
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="35475a5a41757d7a6661">[email protected]</a> ~] cd test
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="097b66667d4941465a5d">[email protected]</a> ~/test] touch sth
touch: cannot touch `sth': Permission denied
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="ddafb2b2a99d95928e89">[email protected]</a> ~/test] cd ..
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="cebca1a1ba8e86819d9a">[email protected]</a> ~] chattr -i test
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b6c4d9d9c2f6fef9e5e2">[email protected]</a> ~] cd test
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="13617c7c67535b5c4047">[email protected]</a> ~/test] touch sth
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="20524f4f5460686f7374">[email protected]</a> ~/test]

UPDATE: only the directory deletion is important, so I still need the files to be deleted in it

Answers:

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Method 1

Create a file “.protected” and do as root

chattr +i .protected

You can then delete all files except .protected within this directory,
thus the directory can’t be deleted by any other user.

Method 2

chattr +a

should do the job. You can create files inside but you won’t be able to delete them.

Method 3

So what is wrong with a simple chown/chmod?:

cd /tmp
mkdir question
sudo chown root:root question
[sudo] password for user: 
chmod 777 ./question
touch sth
rm sth
cd ..
rm question -rf
rm: cannot remove `question': Operation not permitted

OK, let me tell you what is wrong with this: every user has all access to every file in the question directory due to the 777 permissions. It is better to

• create a new group groupadd question
• mkdir question
• chown root:question ./question
• chmod 770 ./question
• add the users that must have access to the files to the new group: usermod -G group user

The important trick here is that the directory has a different owner than any of the users that will try to delete it.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0