Re: [CentOS] wiping out data on a disk (no physical acess to the machine)

On 01/13/2013 05:10 AM, Carl T. Miller wrote:

Hmm. I find it odd that you're saying something doesn't work when I've seen it work. Don't forget shred is loaded into memory and that echo is an internal command and hence stored in memory. The final command turns off the system, effectively clearing the memory.

Well, it won't work reliably. If the kernel tries to read the filesystem, it's going to panic (which I've also seen; your anecdote does not prove the process to be reliable). Even *fixing* a broken filesystem while it's mounted can cause a panic. Try running fsck on a mounted filesystem (even one mounted read-only). You'll be warned not to do that for a reason.