Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-29 Thread Ljubomir Ljubojevic
On 09/28/2013 04:14 PM, David G. Miller wrote:
 Steve Thompson smt@... writes:


 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, Bret Taylor wrote:

 A fairly simple solution is
 dd if=/dev/zero (or urandom) of=/dev/(device)

 I usually hit the disk with a hammer. Satisfying

 -s

 I run badblocks in write mode on the drive.  badblbocks does four passes
 (all zeroes, alternating ones and zeroes both ways and all ones).  This is
 sufficient to keep all but a high-end forensics lab from getting anything
 useful off of the disk and even such a lab will have a hard time.  For the
 OP's question, this lets him know that the disk is both clean and is still
 good to use.

How about using strong magnet on the drive :)



 For me, if badblocks says the disk is good, it goes on the shelf as a spare
 until it is hopelessly obsolete.  Otherwise, the disk gets used for target
 practice.  Also, very satisfying.


-- 
Ljubomir Ljubojevic
(Love is in the Air)
PL Computers
Serbia, Europe

StarOS, Mikrotik and CentOS/RHEL/Linux consultant
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-28 Thread David G . Miller
Steve Thompson smt@... writes:

 
 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, Bret Taylor wrote:
 
  A fairly simple solution is
  dd if=/dev/zero (or urandom) of=/dev/(device)
 
 I usually hit the disk with a hammer. Satisfying 
 
 -s
 
I run badblocks in write mode on the drive.  badblbocks does four passes
(all zeroes, alternating ones and zeroes both ways and all ones).  This is
sufficient to keep all but a high-end forensics lab from getting anything
useful off of the disk and even such a lab will have a hard time.  For the
OP's question, this lets him know that the disk is both clean and is still
good to use.

For me, if badblocks says the disk is good, it goes on the shelf as a spare
until it is hopelessly obsolete.  Otherwise, the disk gets used for target
practice.  Also, very satisfying.

Cheers,
Dave



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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-28 Thread Phil Dobbin
On 26/09/13 20:33, John R Pierce wrote:
 On 9/26/2013 11:30 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
 I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.

 One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive
 has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.

 Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The Debian
 drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.
 this 400GB drive is /dev/sdb ?

 as root...
 fdisk /dev/sdb
and delete all partitions, create a new linux partition thats
 the full size of the disk, exit fdisk.
 mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
 mkdir /backups

 edit /etc/fstab and add a line to the bottom like:
 /dev/sdb1/backups ext3   defaults1 2

 now, mount /backups

 voila, done.  your backups will be mounted as /backups when you reboot.


Thanks to everybody for their input but I think I'll go with the method 
above. The disk is virtually a virgin Debian install so no secret or 
critical files are aboard  I think this should suffice.

Thanks for your help,

Cheers,

  Phil...

-- 
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Arch Linux, CentOS 5.9  6.4, Debian Squeeze  Wheezy, Fedora Spherical  That 
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-28 Thread Phil Dobbin
On 28/09/13 16:35, Phil Dobbin wrote:
 On 26/09/13 20:33, John R Pierce wrote:
 On 9/26/2013 11:30 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
 I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.

 One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive
 has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.

 Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The 
 Debian
 drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.
 this 400GB drive is /dev/sdb ?

 as root...
 fdisk /dev/sdb
and delete all partitions, create a new linux partition thats
 the full size of the disk, exit fdisk.
 mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
 mkdir /backups

 edit /etc/fstab and add a line to the bottom like:
 /dev/sdb1/backups ext3   defaults1 2

 now, mount /backups

 voila, done.  your backups will be mounted as /backups when you reboot.


 Thanks to everybody for their input but I think I'll go with the 
 method above. The disk is virtually a virgin Debian install so no 
 secret or critical files are aboard  I think this should suffice.

 Thanks for your help,


I went down the GParted route in the end. Booted from System Rescue CD  
got shot of the stuff that was on there. Worked a treat.

Cheers,

  Phil...

-- 
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Arch Linux, CentOS 5.9  6.4, Debian Squeeze  Wheezy, Fedora Spherical  That 
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread mark
On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
 Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:
 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

 Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an
 fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.

 My policies are work are simple:

   1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
   2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
   3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

 I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
 I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
 about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task,
 however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads
 out the door.

 You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it,
 right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.

Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and I've 
seen that it is. And we normally use a disk until a) it dies, or b) the 
server it's in dies, and then reuse, or, more likely, sits around until we 
consider it too small On top of which, I *do* need to guarantee that 
it's clean, as I noted originally. I have *zero* intention of winding up in 
a news story about someone buying an old surplussed server, and finding all 
*sorts* of interesting data on the h/d in it.

mark
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread SilverTip257
On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 7:11 AM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
  Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:

  I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
  I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
  about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task,
  however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads
  out the door.
 
  You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it,


That's only if you just use the autonuke option.
Press F[234] to check out the other boot options.


  right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.

 Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and I've


There are other dban boot options that offer settings for additional passes
(7 passes).
A person could also boot to interactive mode and specify a number of passes.

An example from the isolinux.cfg that could be used as a springboard to
concocting one's own wiping recipe.
snippet
LABEL  paranoid
KERNEL dban.bzi
APPEND nuke=dwipe --autonuke --method prng --rounds 8 --verify all silent
/snippet


 seen that it is. And we normally use a disk until a) it dies, or b) the
 server it's in dies, and then reuse, or, more likely, sits around until we
 consider it too small On top of which, I *do* need to guarantee that
 it's clean, as I noted originally. I have *zero* intention of winding up in
 a news story about someone buying an old surplussed server, and finding all
 *sorts* of interesting data on the h/d in it.


At a former place of employment we would simply not leave hard drives in
servers or desktops that were intended to be recycled or junked.  The hard
drives got disposed of separately (in this case crushed with a hydraulic
wedge).



 mark
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread Nicolas Thierry-Mieg
mark wrote:
 On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
 Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:
 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

 Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an
 fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.

 My policies are work are simple:

1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

 I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
 I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
 about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task,
 however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads
 out the door.

 You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it,
 right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.

 Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and I've
 seen that it is. And we normally use a disk until a) it dies, or b) the
 server it's in dies, and then reuse, or, more likely, sits around until we
 consider it too small On top of which, I *do* need to guarantee that
 it's clean, as I noted originally. I have *zero* intention of winding up in
 a news story about someone buying an old surplussed server, and finding all
 *sorts* of interesting data on the h/d in it.


although this kind of chest-thumping may elicit the occasional chuckle 
from bored or weary list members on this friday afternoon, it's not much 
help to the OP who AFAICR was simply asking how to reuse in centos a HDD 
that is currently used by another OS on the same computer. So basically 
s/he was asking for fdisk + mkfs + edit /etc/fstab , as suggested by 
some. No need to digress further on DOD regulations and whatnot on this 
centos list. Thanks.
Sur ce, bon week-end!
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread m . roth
SilverTip257 wrote:
 On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 7:11 AM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
  Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:

  I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
  I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
  about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task,
  however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads
  out the door.
 
  You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it,

 That's only if you just use the autonuke option.
 Press F[234] to check out the other boot options.

  right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.

 Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and
snip
 seen that it is. And we normally use a disk until a) it dies, or b) the
 server it's in dies, and then reuse, or, more likely, sits around until
 we consider it too small On top of which, I *do* need to guarantee
that
 it's clean, as I noted originally. I have *zero* intention of winding up
 in a news story about someone buying an old surplussed server, and finding
 all *sorts* of interesting data on the h/d in it.

 At a former place of employment we would simply not leave hard drives in
 servers or desktops that were intended to be recycled or junked.  The hard
 drives got disposed of separately (in this case crushed with a hydraulic
 wedge).

Hah! When we have one that's failed, it gets deGaussed here. (Except for
old, 1.5x height SCSI drives, for which they don't have a frame. Then we
unscrew the thing, and disassemble, and have cool magnets, and pretty
disks (which we can bend, or hit with a hammer).

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread m . roth
Nicolas Thierry-Mieg wrote:
 mark wrote:
 On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
 Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:
 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

 Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an
 fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.

 My policies are work are simple:

1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

 I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
 I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
snip
 Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and
snip
 although this kind of chest-thumping may elicit the occasional chuckle
 from bored or weary list members on this friday afternoon, it's not much
 help to the OP who AFAICR was simply asking how to reuse in centos a HDD
 that is currently used by another OS on the same computer. So basically
 s/he was asking for fdisk + mkfs + edit /etc/fstab , as suggested by
 some. No need to digress further on DOD regulations and whatnot on this
 centos list. Thanks.

Hey, I mention that because I figure if it would meet their standards,
it's guaranteed for anything I need. And no, I am not now, nor have I ever
been under the US DoD, thankyouverymuch* g But the OP did ask about
cleaning it, and it's possible that something with sensitive data could go
to another dept, and then they get rid of it without cleaning it, which is
why all this came up.

mark

* #insert AlicesRestaurant.h


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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread John Doe
From: Steve Thompson s...@vgersoft.com

 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, Bret Taylor wrote:
 I usually hit the disk with a hammer. Satisfying :-)

I disassemble the drives... I keep the shiny platters to scare birds or 
make sculptures, and I play with the magnets!

JD
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-27 Thread John R Pierce
On 9/27/2013 7:05 AM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 At a former place of employment we would simply not leave hard drives in
 servers or desktops that were intended to be recycled or junked.  The hard
 drives got disposed of separately (in this case crushed with a hydraulic
 wedge).
 Hah! When we have one that's failed, it gets deGaussed here. (Except for
 old, 1.5x height SCSI drives, for which they don't have a frame. Then we
 unscrew the thing, and disassemble, and have cool magnets, and pretty
 disks (which we can bend, or hit with a hammer).

ours are collected in a secure area, then once a month or so a chipper 
truck comes by and grinds them up to dust.

my feelings on disk erasure, based on years and years of being ni this 
industry (I started programming in 1973 with FORTRAN and punchcards, and 
worked on disk device drivers in the late 70s, early 80s, and work for a 
storage company now these last 15 years).

DOD whatever is obsolete and meaningless.   its not even used by the 
DOD anymore, they physically destroy anything secret.  to reasonably 
safely erase an modern disk (thats anything since MFM/ESDI became 
obsolete), one pass of anything (1's is fine) and one pass of zeros is 
more than sufficient... EXCEPT modern disks have automatic bad block 
remapping, and its /very/ possible for there to still be readable albeit 
old data on those bad blocks. if that possibility of data leakage is 
unacceptable, physical destruction is appropriate.

-- 
john r pierce  37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast

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[CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Phil Dobbin
Hi.

I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.

One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive 
has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.

Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The Debian 
drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

Phil...

-- 
currently (ab)using
Arch Linux, CentOS 5.9  6.4, Debian Squeeze  Wheezy, Fedora Spherical  That 
Damn Cat, Lubuntu 12.10, OS X Snow Leopard  Tiger, Ubuntu Quantal, Raring  
Saucy
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Bret Taylor
Burn a DBAN disk. Shutdown, pull out the drive you want to keep. Boot to the 
dban disk, when prompted type autonuke, wait for the process to complete. 
Shutdown, reinsert the centos drive you wanted to keep. You will now have your 
centos main drive, and a blank backup disk. You'll need to run mkfs on the 
blank drive. Then mount it where you want it. 

Phil Dobbin bukowskis...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi.

I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.

One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive

has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.

Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The
Debian 
drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

Phil...

-- 
currently (ab)using
Arch Linux, CentOS 5.9  6.4, Debian Squeeze  Wheezy, Fedora Spherical
 That Damn Cat, Lubuntu 12.10, OS X Snow Leopard  Tiger, Ubuntu
Quantal, Raring  Saucy
GnuGPG Key : http://phildobbin.org/publickey.asc

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread m . roth
Bret Taylor wrote:
 Phil Dobbin bukowskis...@gmail.com wrote:

I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.
One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive
has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.
Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The
Debian drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

Any help appreciated.

 Burn a DBAN disk. Shutdown, pull out the drive you want to keep. Boot to
 the dban disk, when prompted type autonuke, wait for the process to
 complete. Shutdown, reinsert the centos drive you wanted to keep. You will
 now have your centos main drive, and a blank backup disk. You'll need to
 run mkfs on the blank drive. Then mount it where you want it.

Then put the dban disk on the shelf over your desk - you *will* want it
again (and again, and again)

Most *excellent* piece of software. Of course, working for a US federal
contractor, when I sanitize, I overkill (DoD 5220.22-M)... but I *am*
signing my name to the form guaranteeing it's clean.

We, at least, are not going to have accidents with PII and HIPAA data.

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Bret Taylor
Better safe than sorry. Even if people think it's overkill. There's paranoid, 
and then there's best practice; in my mind they're one in the same.

m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
Bret Taylor wrote:
 Phil Dobbin bukowskis...@gmail.com wrote:

I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.
One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB
drive
has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.
Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The
Debian drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

Any help appreciated.

 Burn a DBAN disk. Shutdown, pull out the drive you want to keep. Boot
to
 the dban disk, when prompted type autonuke, wait for the process to
 complete. Shutdown, reinsert the centos drive you wanted to keep. You
will
 now have your centos main drive, and a blank backup disk. You'll need
to
 run mkfs on the blank drive. Then mount it where you want it.

Then put the dban disk on the shelf over your desk - you *will* want it
again (and again, and again)

Most *excellent* piece of software. Of course, working for a US federal
contractor, when I sanitize, I overkill (DoD 5220.22-M)... but I *am*
signing my name to the form guaranteeing it's clean.

We, at least, are not going to have accidents with PII and HIPAA data.

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread John R Pierce
On 9/26/2013 11:30 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
 I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.

 One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive
 has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.

 Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The Debian
 drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

this 400GB drive is /dev/sdb ?

as root...
fdisk /dev/sdb
  and delete all partitions, create a new linux partition thats 
the full size of the disk, exit fdisk.
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
mkdir /backups

edit /etc/fstab and add a line to the bottom like:
/dev/sdb1/backups ext3   defaults1 2

now, mount /backups

voila, done.  your backups will be mounted as /backups when you reboot.


-- 
john r pierce  37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread m . roth
Please don't top post.

Bret Taylor wrote:
 m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
Bret Taylor wrote:
 Phil Dobbin bukowskis...@gmail.com wrote:

I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.
One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB
drive has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.
Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The
Debian drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

Any help appreciated.

 Burn a DBAN disk. Shutdown, pull out the drive you want to keep. Boot
to the dban disk, when prompted type autonuke, wait for the process to
 complete. Shutdown, reinsert the centos drive you wanted to keep. You
will now have your centos main drive, and a blank backup disk. You'll need
to run mkfs on the blank drive. Then mount it where you want it.

Then put the dban disk on the shelf over your desk - you *will* want it
again (and again, and again)

Most *excellent* piece of software. Of course, working for a US federal
contractor, when I sanitize, I overkill (DoD 5220.22-M)... but I *am*
signing my name to the form guaranteeing it's clean.

We, at least, are not going to have accidents with PII and HIPAA data.

 Better safe than sorry. Even if people think it's overkill. There's
 paranoid, and then there's best practice; in my mind they're one in the
 same.

The reality is that it's massive overkill. A dozen years ago, seven passes
would guarantee cleanliness. These days, the way the data's stored on
modern drives, I've seen people argue that one was sufficient, and surely
two would be.

But it's no big deal. I usually do four at a time, shove them into an old,
decommissioned server that I saved for the purpose, and leave dban in the
DVD drive, fire it up, choose that, and the drives, and walk away. The
next day, the following Monday, who cares? I'm mostly using them for
servers that we're about to surplus.

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread zGreenfelder
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 3:33 PM, John R Pierce pie...@hogranch.com wrote:

 On 9/26/2013 11:30 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
  I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.
 
  One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep  the bigger 400GB drive
  has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase  use for backups.
 
  Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The Debian
  drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.

 this 400GB drive is /dev/sdb ?

 as root...
 fdisk /dev/sdb
   and delete all partitions, create a new linux partition thats
 the full size of the disk, exit fdisk.
 mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
 mkdir /backups

 edit /etc/fstab and add a line to the bottom like:
 /dev/sdb1/backups ext3   defaults1 2

 now, mount /backups

 voila, done.  your backups will be mounted as /backups when you reboot.


I think this question is asking everyone to make lots of assumptions about
your hardware config.   I tend to agree with Mr. Pierce above (again,
assuming you have 2 separate  physical drives and not some sort of weird
LVM or Hardware raid in the mix).   if you're going to repurpose the drive
to backups within the same machine, going to the effort of running 7 pass
DOD graded disk wipe utils seems to me at best kinda dumb and very wasteful
for time, at worse it'll take more life off an old disk.   then again,
there's assuming in that answer, too.

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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Paul Heinlein

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:


Burn a DBAN disk []


Then put the dban disk on the shelf over your desk [...]


Then make it available via PXE, though with a DANGER warning in your 
PXE menu :-).


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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread SilverTip257
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 3:47 PM, Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:

 On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

  Burn a DBAN disk []


 Then put the dban disk on the shelf over your desk [...]


Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an fdisk
and creating a file system is overkill.

Besides there's gnu shred that would do the job from his running CentOS
system ... hit the secondary drive with random bits or just a pass of zeros.

# one pass random bits, one pass zero
shred -vfz -n1 /dev/something

# zeros only
shred -vfz -n0 /dev/something



 Then make it available via PXE, though with a DANGER warning in your PXE
 menu :-).


Hehehe. ;)

I have dban on a pxe boot server.
Initially having it there was a bit disconcerting ... more so that a
coworker would stumble upon it.  I hid the option in a separate menu and
did put a warning in the splash message.

Off-Topic:
A coworker of mine modified the dban iso so that it would boot and
auto-nuke (no keyboard) ...
He left that disc in a server he gave to another coworker ... who we
suspect put the disc in a work computer and wiped the drive!  :P




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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Paul Heinlein

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an 
fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.


My policies are work are simple:

 1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
 2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
 3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed, 
I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just 
about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task, 
however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads 
out the door.


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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Bret Taylor
Paul Heinlein heinl...@madboa.com wrote:
On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

 Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary.  Probably more than an 
 fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.

My policies are work are simple:

  1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
  2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
  3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed, 
I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just 
about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task, 
however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads 
out the door.

You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it, right? 
DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it. 

A fairly simple solution is

dd if=/dev/zero (or urandom) of=/dev/(device) 
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Re: [CentOS] erase disk

2013-09-26 Thread Steve Thompson
On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, Bret Taylor wrote:

 A fairly simple solution is
 dd if=/dev/zero (or urandom) of=/dev/(device)

I usually hit the disk with a hammer. Satisfying :-)

-s
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