recycle.ko

A Linux kernel module which moves all files unlinked under a root directory to a recycle directory.

This module was inspired by the Samba vfs_recycle module but works with directory trees shared via NFS (or not shared at all).

It works by using ftrace to hook the security_inode_unlink function (which is called before the kernel performs an unlink) and adding a hard-link to the inode of the file about to be deleted to an equivalent path under the recycle directory.

It is probably worth bearing in mind that this is my first kernel module so I can’t guarantee that it won’t crash your machine or eat all of your data etc. However, I do run it on the server which stores my personal files - hopefully that demonstrates my confidence.

Note that this module hasn’t been implemented to work with delegated inodes (e.g. directories mounted via NFS on a client), I’d recommend using it on the NFS server side instead.

recycle.ko is free to use and open source, licensed under the terms of the GPL. You can browse or download the source at the GitHub repository.

Download Version 0.3

DKMS .deb package
C Source Code .zip or .tar.gz

Latest News

New Release: recycle.ko 0.3

Fix build with 6.15, 6.18 & 6.19 kernels.
Fix build with Ubuntu kernel 6.8.0-146-generic.
Updated dependencies.

For full details and to download this release, see the recycle.ko page.

21 October 2026

New Release: recycle.ko 0.2

Correctly ignore files unlinked from an inner nested recycle directory instead of moving them to the outer recycle dir.

For full details and to download this release, see the recycle.ko page.

08 September 2024

Questions or Problems?

For more information see the help page. If you have found a problem then you can report a bug. If you still have questions, feel free to get in touch.