[TriLUG] disk data destruction

[Joseph Tate]

You can probably do better using dd: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd* bs=4096 
for 4k nodes, 8192 for 8k nodes.  The cat command should work though.

Joseph

Andrew Perrin wrote:

>How about something like: (UNTESTED)
>
>cat /dev/zero > /dev/hd*
>
>where * is the appropriate device.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Andrew J Perrin - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
>Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
>clists at perrin.socsci.unc.edu * andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu
>
>
>On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Morris Walton wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I am migrating/merging three old drives into one new one and will
>>attempt to sell my old drives.  I want to destroy the data on the old
>>drives more thoroughly than just doing a re-partition.  What utility
>>would you recommend?
>>
>>Thanks for the help!
>>
>>Morris
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: trilug-admin at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-admin at trilug.org] On
>>>      
>>>
>>Behalf
>>    
>>
>>>Of Jon Carnes
>>>Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 10:56 AM
>>>To: Triangle Linux Users Group
>>>Subject: Re: [TriLUG] disk partitioning
>>>
>>>Red Hat went the way of simplicity.  An experienced admin will
>>>      
>>>
>>partition
>>    
>>
>>>the disk themselves, and inexperienced user will simply not want to
>>>      
>>>
>>deal
>>    
>>
>>>with having separate volumes (or they will partition it themselves).
>>>
>>>Kudo's to RedHat for making it easier on Newbies.
>>>
>>>One big partition will not be slower, but it is less "secure".  As an
>>>example, your "/tmp" directory is on the big "/" and that directory is
>>>wide-open to being written to.  If someone with external access to
>>>      
>>>
>>your
>>    
>>
>>>box decides to hose you, they can simply write a ton of small file to
>>>your "/tmp" directory.  This will eat up all the space on your drive
>>>      
>>>
>>as
>>    
>>
>>>well as all the inodes.
>>>
>>>On a workstation that may not be a big deal to you - especially if you
>>>don't run any daemon's like ftp or apache.  I recommend though that
>>>      
>>>
>>you
>>    
>>
>>>do have a separate /home directory (or a /backup directory).  At some
>>>point in the lifespan of that hard drive you will want to upgrade the
>>>distribution.  When that happens, you will find it easier to
>>>install/backup if everything you want to preserve is in a separate
>>>volume.
>>>
>>>Good Luck - Jon Carnes
>>>
>>>On Tue, 2003-02-04 at 10:34, Morris Walton wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>I just installed RH8, using a new 120G hd.  I accepted the default
>>>>partitioning scheme, which basically just uses /boot, /, and swap.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>"/"
>>    
>>
>>>>has the bulk of the space.  I was wondering if there is a shift in
>>>>philosophy in using less partitions than before as I remember RH
>>>>recommending more partitions in older versions.  Will the one big
>>>>partition be slower?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>Morris
>>>>        
>>>>
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>>>
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>>    
>>
>
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