On Mon, January 11, 2016 9:38 am, Gordon Messmer wrote: > On 01/11/2016 06:50 AM, Always Learning wrote: >> Why not, on start-up, create a 'ram disk' and do your sensitive work in volatile RAM or is this what 'tmpfs' implies ? > > I think that's what OP expected tmpfs to be, but it should be noted that tmpfs *can* be swapped to disk, so it should not be used for data that you don't want to ever hit non-volatile storage (unless you have no swap space). One thing just asks to be added: "volatile" memory is not that volatile, so relying purely on keeping sensitive stuff in plain text in volatile memory may be not too good idea. Still, it is much more secure that the case when sensitive data may hit the hard drive. What I mention, is best explained here (the whole paper is very instructive, for RAM go directly to chapter 8): https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html Valeri ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++