Hidden asterisk folder in /home

[vaibhav]

I just discovered a hidden “asterisk” folder under /home
It has around 500MB data

[root@ast4 /]# cd /home/
[root@ast4 home]# ll
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 12 asterisk asterisk 4096 Aug  4 09:54 asterisk
[root@ast4 home]# cd asterisk/
[root@ast4 asterisk]# ll
total 0
[root@ast4 asterisk]# cd /
[root@ast4 /]# du -h ./home/ --max-depth=1
463M    ./home/asterisk
463M    ./home/
[root@ast4 /]# cd /home/asterisk/
[root@ast4 asterisk]# ll
total 0
[root@ast4 asterisk]# ls -al
total 64
drwxr-xr-x 12 asterisk asterisk 4096 Aug  4 09:54 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root     root     4096 Jul 28 18:44 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 asterisk asterisk   18 Dec  6  2016 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 asterisk asterisk  193 Dec  6  2016 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--  1 asterisk asterisk  231 Dec  6  2016 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x  2 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 28 18:45 .clang-tools
drwxr-xr-x  3 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 28 18:45 .config
drwxrwxr-x  2 asterisk asterisk 4096 Dec 27 20:35 .gnupg
drwxr-xr-x  5 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 28 18:45 .node
drwxr-xr-x  4 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 29 11:18 .node-gyp
drwxr-xr-x  4 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 28 18:46 .npm
-rw-r--r--  1 asterisk asterisk   18 Dec 27 19:02 .npmrc
-rw-r--r--  1 asterisk asterisk    0 Jul 29 11:08 .odbc.ini
drwxr-xr-x  3 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 28 18:46 .package_cache
drwxr-xr-x  3 asterisk asterisk 4096 Jul 31 23:41 .pki
drwxrwxr-x  5 asterisk asterisk 4096 Nov  1 06:38 .pm2
drwx------  2 asterisk asterisk 4096 Aug  4 09:55 .ssh
[root@ast4 asterisk]#

Would love to understand what is this folder all about, why is it hidden.

Thanks!

[cyberchaplain (Brian Ladd)]

It’s hidden because of the . in front of the folders. That’s a Linux thing, not an Asterisk thing.

I think these are always there.

I wager the 500MB is the log file for restapps. Apparently Asterisk doesn’t purge that file regularly, so if restapps is starting/stopping alot the log balloons quickly.

[gsiemon]

That is the home folder for the user account ‘asterisk’. All user accounts have their home folder located in the /home directory except ‘root’. Most of the services run as ‘asterisk’ on FreePBX Distro. I’m guessing some settings are stored in the home folder which is why it has ~500MB in it. Its “hidden” from you as you are logged in as root which is a different user. If you could log in as ‘asterisk’ you’d have this directory as your home folder.