summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/system/srm/README
blob: a2c86552eddbf315d54ba09228c650b1ab9e80ee (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
srm is a secure replacement for rm(1). Unlike the standard rm, it overwrites
the data in the target files before unlinking them. This prevents command-line
recovery of the data by examining the raw block device. It may also help to
frustrate a physical examination of the disk, although it's unlikely that it can
completely protect against this type of recovery.

srm uses algorithms found in "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-
State Memory" by Peter Gutmann and THC Secure Delete (the overwrite, truncate,
rename, unlink sequence).

Please note that srm will only work on file systems that overwrite blocks in
place. In particular, it will *NOT* work on reiserfs or the vast majority of
journaled file systems. It should work on ext2, FAT-based file systems, and
the BSD native file system. On ext3, srm will try to disable the journaling
of data (please see the verbose output if this fails).