(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello,

does somebody knows where I can find the shred utility, the command line program to wipe securily files ?

I find it strange because shred is a standard command line utility we can find on many distributions.

In my Package manager I tried all possible repositories but nowhere there is the shred utility to install.

Cheers
friendofjane

I don't know. Seems like it ought to be around here somewhere. Will this do instead?

It's part of the coreutils pkg.

Puppy uses busybox instead of coreutils, so it is not in puppy. I would not simply install coreutils, though, as it will break many puppy scripts which depend on the busybox versions of tools included in coreutils.

amigo wrote:Puppy uses busybox instead of coreutils, so it is not in puppy. I would not simply install coreutils, though, as it will break many puppy scripts which depend on the busybox versions of tools included in coreutils.

I have

~> shred --version
shred (GNU coreutils) 7.4
Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

It came with the SuperLuPu I'm using just now on this computer.
amigo, any ideas on what should I look out for with regard to scripts breaking?

FOJ, 4 Precise now and may need a lib.. Unpack'n stick it in /usr/bin.

I downloaded the shred.gz, unzipped it and put it in usr/bin. The first time I entered shred --help in a console, it told me I didn't have permission, so I right-clicked on shred in usr/bin, chose permissions and told it to make it executable. Then the help menu appeared.

I found a very interesting thing in shred's instructions:

In the case of ext3 file systems, the above disclaimer applies
(and shred is thus of limited effectiveness) only in data=journal mode,
which journals file data in addition to just metadata. In both the
data=ordered (default) and data=writeback modes, shred works as usual.
Ext3 journaling modes can be changed by adding the data=something option
to the mount options for a particular file system in the /etc/fstab file,
as documented in the mount man page (man mount)

It would appear that ext3 can be a journaling file system!

Thank you, I will try that shred and tell you.

Of course ext3 is a journalling FS.
No problem using a 'loose' copy of shred - that won't break anything.

Newer, from Slack 14.1 >> coreutils v8.21. This one unpacks to /bin. If the other works, that's fine, leave it.

Can't something similar be done with a simple bash script? Just curious...

Slavvo.. this a tease? Cough it up!

Hi Semme:

I just saw your response. Now I'm going crazy looking for the script that I tied to an Ubuntu "shred like" program but much faster. I'll get back to you on this. Of course there's the dd script but there's something better and quick....

So, while you salivate... take a look at this...

http://www.noah.org/wiki/Dd_-_Destroyer_of_Disks

This above is an amazing write-up about wiping disks. Wish I could take credit but not me.

Stay tuned. I'll find that script and program I'm talking about....

Best,

Slavvo67

Let me guess >> srm? Don't worry, I'm far from hell-bent.

Actually, I believe it was HDParm. But I lost the script that I wrote as a front end. I'm need to stop saving in Root when I'm running a live CD. LOL