Permission denied when trying to list directory...

[orbdrums]

I'm trying to ls -al the contents of /var/spool/mqueue and Terminal is coming back with Permission denied. If I'm the admin on my machine how can this be denied? Thanks in advance.

 

[Intell]

You may be an admin, but some things are off limits to everyone except root. Use sudo before the command to give yourself root permissions to view the contents.

 

[orbdrums]

Thanks! Don't know why I stumbled on something like that. My mind was elsewhere.

 

[orbdrums]

Now I'm stuck at removing files from my postfix/active directory. When I use sudo cd postfix/active it appears to change directory but when I only get to /postfix. When I use sudo ls -l it shows only the postfix directory contents. When I use sudo ls -l active the active messages are shown:

sudo ls -l active
total 232
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 705 Feb 11 16:58 072FB25E69FC
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 586 Feb 11 16:58 0FE4C25E9EFA
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 807 Feb 11 16:58 1286F25E04AB
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 705 Feb 11 16:58 18F4D25E6B17
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 618 Feb 11 16:58 275A225E3A20
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 892 Feb 11 16:58 302E525E9EAC
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 570 Feb 11 16:58 40DB425E739C
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 553 Feb 11 16:58 4231F25E56FE
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 613 Feb 11 16:58 424BD25E3A93
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 703 Feb 11 16:58 485F225E54B4
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 711 Feb 11 16:58 4F9C625E841F
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 891 Feb 11 16:58 50BF825EA289
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 594 Feb 11 16:58 60AFA25E3BA3
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 807 Feb 11 16:58 6197C25E06CB
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 594 Feb 11 16:58 6200025E3B71
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 576 Feb 11 16:58 7368A25E3D6B
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 807 Feb 11 16:58 73D0B25E0722
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 579 Feb 11 16:58 7937C25E8316
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 799 Feb 11 16:58 8345F25E3AD3
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 596 Feb 11 16:58 89D8625E1359
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 705 Feb 11 16:58 B2F1725E6D8F
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 596 Feb 11 16:58 B68B925E140C
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 711 Feb 11 16:58 B94A525E9D05
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 596 Feb 11 16:58 BC91125E1586
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 594 Feb 11 16:58 C077425E3B24
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 558 Feb 11 16:58 C268B25E831B
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 705 Feb 11 16:58 C88D525E6B4F
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 892 Feb 11 16:58 D043525E9E53
-rwx------ 1 _postfix wheel 780 Feb 11 16:58 D5D1825E4160

How do I get to the active directory to remove the messages that I want?

 

[maflynn]

based on your other thread, you messed up removing them, but you really shouldn't be deleting files/folders in the system folders. Bad things can happen when people start messing with those folders and files.