Please read the notes in the linked manpages on security issues arising from still recoverable backups in journaling file systems when erasing single files. wipe filenameĪdditional notes on journaling file systems and SSDs: More options, and the possibility of erasing directories in addition to single files, are offered by this command line utility. Files we want to keep will have to be backed up before shredding. This can also be used to remove unwanted remnants of deleted files. It therefore efficiently deletes everything including file system caches on that partition forever.

NOTE: By shredding a partition we will overwrite this partition with 0 or random numbers. This will take 4 times longer than the fast method. In addition (option -z) this writes zeros to hide the shredding process at the end. Secure shredding shred -vzn 3 /dev/sdc1Įrases the whole partition using 3 iterations with random numbers. If no legal aspects require another procedure, doing so is most probably safe to securely delete your private data.įrom Craig Wright Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008, 5352, 243-257. Fast shredding shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdc1Įrases whole partitions by overwriting everything with 0s in a single iteration. This command line tool is already installed from the core utilities in Ubuntu to securely erase and overwrite single files using the Gutman method.

Secure delete