Debian and Ubuntu: /tmp doesn't get cleaned at boot-time anymore?
Sometimes after some magic happening, maybe an upgrade or a custom software setup, I can't remenber, the /tmp directory doesn't get cleaned anymore at boot-time.
The result is that when you are booting your computer you'll find files in /tmp from the previous time when your computer was on. Too bad.
The cause of this can be found in the /lib/init/bootclean.sh file. The clean_tmp() function uses some checks before emptying the directory. And one of those is checking whether the /tmp directory is actually world-writable, using this command:
$ find /tmp -maxdepth 0 -perm -002
If this command returns nothing then you've got the same problem as me: your /tmp directory is not world-writable anymore. Just type in this command:
# chmod a+rwX /tmp
And voilà it's done! You can now check that it works using:
# service checkroot-bootclean.sh start
If your /tmp directory is not empty then you should read on the /lib/init/bootclean.sh script and find which check is avoiding the function to clean your /tmp directory at boot.