purging a disk
2007-12-25 8:05:00
>
> Is it possible to purge a whole disk from within a program?
>
> For example: the program is running in Motif and the user must quickly
> erase the disk for security reasons, a 'kill disk' button is provided
> for this purpose.
>
> I don't believe it is possible to do this without going into the miniroot
> or running from a RAM disk partition and then running format, but I need
> to verify this fact.
Well, many people responded, some couldn't beleive I would ever want
to do such a thing. Believe it.
As some people guessed, the purge must be a 'real' purge and it must
be DoD approved, which eliminates the most common suggestions, anyway
here are the suggestions I got.
1. Do a newfs on the partition to be purged
- this only makes the disk appear to be wiped, the data is still there.
No good.
2. Do 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/RAWDEVICE'.
- While this may work, it is not DoD approved and will not be because it
cannot write complementary patterns of 1's and 0's to the disk in
3 passes.
3. Hit the 'off' button, just as effective.
- WRONG.
4. Use Plastic explosives.
- Not "user friendly".
5. Get a product called 'Scrub' or 'Shred' from Los Altos Technologies
- Claims to be DoD approved, but I have not verified this.
6. Run format
- Cannot be run on mounted partitions.
Well, I haven't decided what, if anything, I can do about this requirement.
It seems that the Scrub program may be the way to go. I need to
clean the WHOLE disk, /, /usr, and everything else, mounted or otherwise.
Some people didn't understand that part.
Thanks to all who responded:
boole.att.com!tommy
cadre.af.mil!hightowr
inference.com!jaf
genova.infn.it!CAMPANI
europarc.xerox.com!Daniel
xerox.com!Perry_Hutchison.Portland
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Wyllys Ingersoll E-Systems, Melpar Div. Ashburn, VA
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