Linux and UNIX Man Pages

Linux & Unix Commands - Search Man Pages

srm(1) [osx man page]

SRM(1)							      General Commands Manual							    SRM(1)

NAME
srm - securely remove files or directories SYNOPSIS
srm [OPTION]... FILE... DESCRIPTION
srm removes each specified file by overwriting, renaming, and truncating it before unlinking. This prevents other people from undeleting or recovering any information about the file from the command line. srm, like every program that uses the getopt function to parse its arguments, lets you use the -- option to indicate that all following arguments are non-options. To remove a file called '-f' in the current directory, you could type either "srm -- -f" or "srm ./-f". OPTIONS
-d, --directory ignored (for compatibility with rm(1)) -f, --force ignore nonexistent files, never prompt -i, --interactive prompt before any removal -r, -R, --recursive remove the contents of directories recursively -s, --simple only overwrite with a single pass of random data -m, --medium overwrite the file with 7 US DoD compliant passes (0xF6, 0x00, 0xFF, random, 0x00, 0xFF, random) -z, --zero after overwriting, zero blocks used by file -n, --nounlink overwrite file, but do not rename or unlink it -v, --verbose explain what is being done --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit NOTES
srm can not remove write protected files owned by another user, regardless of the permissions on the directory containing the file. The -s option overrides the -m option, if both are present. If neither is specified, the 35-pass Gutmann algorithm is used. Development and discussion of srm is carried out at <http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=3297>, which is also accessible via <http://srm.sourceforge.net>. SEE ALSO
rm(1) Mac OS X 20 September 2004 SRM(1)

Check Out this Related Man Page

SRM(1)							      General Commands Manual							    SRM(1)

NAME
srm - secure remove (secure_deletion toolkit) SYNOPSIS
srm [-d] [-f] [-l] [-l] [-r] [-v] [-z] files DESCRIPTION
srm is designed to delete data on mediums in a secure manner which can not be recovered by thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. The wipe algorythm is based on the paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of the leading civilian cryptographers. The secure data deletion process of srm goes like this: * 1 pass with 0xff * 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available. * 27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann. * 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available. * Rename the file to a random value * Truncate the file As an additional measure of security, the file is opened in O_SYNC mode and after each pass an fsync() call is done. srm writes 32k blocks for the purpose of speed, filling buffers of disk caches to force them to flush and overwriting old data which belonged to the file. COMMANDLINE OPTIONS
-d ignore the two special dot files . and .. on the commandline. (so you can execute it like "srm -d .* *") -f fast (and insecure mode): no /dev/urandom, no synchronize mode. -l lessens the security. Only two passes are written: one mode with 0xff and a final mode random values. -l -l for a second time lessons the security even more: only one random pass is written. -r recursive mode, deletes all subdirectories. -v verbose mode -z wipes the last write with zeros instead of random data LIMITATIONS
NFS Beware of NFS. You can't ensure you really completely wiped your data from the remote disks. Raid Raid Systems use stripped disks and have got large caches. It's hard to wipe them. swap, /tmp, etc. Some of your data might have a temporary (deleted) copy somewhere on the disk. You should use sfill which comes with the secure_deletion package to ensure to wipe also the free diskspace. However, If already a small file aquired a block with your pre- cious data, no tool known to me can help you here. For a secure deletion of the swap space sswap is available. BUGS
No bugs. There was never a bug in the secure_deletion package (in contrast to my other tools, whew, good luck ;-) Send me any that you find. Patches are nice too :) AUTHOR
van Hauser / THC <vh@thc.org> DISTRIBUTION
The newest version of the secure_deletion package can be obtained from http://www.thc.org srm and the secure_deletion package is (C) 1997-2003 by van Hauser / THC (vh@thc.org) This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; Version 2. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER- CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. SEE ALSO
sfill (1), sswap (1), sdmem (1) SRM(1)
Man Page