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Forum Discussion
finding hidden files
I am attempting to find the source of "virus" warning. Somewhere within a timemachine back up is a file that the scan identifies as a virus, but there is not enough information to find the file and d...
I was hoping I could locate a file name, then delete the file from the machine in the archive - I have no idea how to locate it.
somethingiswron wrote:I was hoping I could locate a file name, then delete the file from the machine in the archive - I have no idea how to locate it.
The Apple Time Machine does make use of a proprietary spare bundles, kind of partial disk images, or archives if you want. (-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machine_(macOS) )
Locating the hidden (.xxxx) file using the ssh root access is possible of course - it's just a file from the ReadyNAS (or any other Linux or whatever OS NAS).
Desperately want to file hidden files ... but that's not what you want I guess:
find /data/.timemachine/ -name ".*" -ls
The path you showed from the by far not perfect scanner is most likley a complete path, with xxxxxx being the username I guess, like this:
ls /data/.timemachine/xxxxxxxx/MacTower.sparsebundle/bands/271d8.
You can always cd to a hidden folder - the same way you would do on an OS X system btw:
cd /data/.timemachine/
The question is what you want to do with that "271d8." file - without breaking the logic and the integrity of your Time Machine backups. Believe me: Time Machine is snippy!
Further on, the question arises what value scanning these MacOS sparse bundle files have. And in the case the Time Machine backup is encrypted it's certainly obsolete.
No idea on how to create a relation between the Time Machine time browsing and the name of the sparse bundle file - only here you might be able to retrieve the file(s) in question - but there is no way to remove em (I've never tried...).
The plan was to findout what the actual offending file was in the archive - then delete that file, if its infected, from its originating location, then restart the time machine (deleting the previous)
You are free to remove the file in question. Your data, your Time Machine...
For the further readers in the community curiosity: What threat was identified by the Antivirus system? I bet it's something ways off from being a risk for your MacOS or NAS... Kind of a false positive anyway.
I appreciate your willingness to call this thread completed - but you have not offered a solution to the question, and have created another question in the process.
First - since the location of the file in question is offered without a complete path - how do I find the item so I can delete the file from the originating location.
Second - if there are false positives, how do I identify false positive, and stop the emails stating a virus was detected (especially when I want to know if there is a virus present?)
Thank you again for your offered answers - however, this is not a closed discussion - no answer has been offered.
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