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I have a vps server that had been attacked with a virus which keeps injecting many hidden files. How can I delete all hidden files in directories and sub directories of the public_html folder, except two files: .htaccess and .user.ini?
I have tried the below Linux command, but without success:
find "public_html" -type f -name '.*' -delete !(".htaccess"|".user.ini")
As people have already told you in the comments, this is a very bad idea. You will never be sure you've cleaned everything up and standard procedure for something like this is to wipe the sever and restore from a clean backup.
That said, the reason your find command isn't working is because find doesn't understand extended globbing patterns like !(".htaccess"|".user.ini"). Instead, you need to use find's own syntax:
find . -type f -name '.*' ! -name .htaccess -a ! -name .user.ini -delete
Or
find . -type f -name '.*' ! \( -name .htaccess -o -name .user.ini \) -delete
