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

Mon Jan 14 01:43:29 UTC 2013
Gordon Messmer <yinyang at eburg.com>

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.