[TriLUG] question about data security with vmdks

[Bill Farrow]

Hi,
I don't think deleting or quick format will do much to prevent someone
recovering your vmdk images.  If someone bought the drive and started
inspecting it for existing data, then they are not just a casual PC
user and so will probably find what you have "hidden".  It's better to
be safe, you'll sleep better at night.

There are various linux tools that can help, like "shred", that will
overwrite your files with random data before deleting them.  Or you
can use good old "dd".

Bill

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:18 AM, Matt Pusateri
<mpusateri at wickedtrails.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 14, 2011, at 2:19 PM, Warren Myers wrote:
>
>> I asked this on ServerFault as well, but wanted to get an additional
>> audience:
>>
>> If I want to mitigate the risk of data recovery from a disk drive resold as
>> surplus equipment, how would the use of virtual disks assist?
>>
>> For example, if I have half a dozen vmdks on a 1TB drive (for sake of
>> argument, presume they've been added to different VMs), and I decide to
>> decommission the drive, would simply erasing the vmdks and then selling /
>> repurposing the drive ensure that the underlying data had been well-erased -
>> even without extensive overwriting (for example, a quick format back to a
>> blank drive)?
>>
>
>
> It seems what you are asking: Is it possible to undelete/recover files from a vmfs formatted disk.  In VMware 3.5 there was a vmfs-undelete that would allow you to undelete vmdk's that had been deleted off the disk.  I heard it got removed in 4.x, and don't see it on my 4.1 box, but we may not have all the SDK's on that box.
>
> I would say running something like DBAN on the drive would be prudent before letting it go out the door.
>
>
> Matt P.
>
>
> --
> This message was sent to: Bill Farrow <bill.farrow at gmail.com>
> To unsubscribe, send a blank message to trilug-leave at trilug.org from that address.
> TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> Unsubscribe or edit options on the web  : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/options/trilug/bill.farrow%40gmail.com
> TriLUG FAQ          : http://www.trilug.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions
>