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srm(1) srm(1) NAME srm - securely remove files or directories SYNOPSIS srm [OPTION]... FILE... DESCRIPTION srm removes each specified file by overwriting, renaming, and truncat- ing it before unlinking. This prevents other people from undeleting or recovering any information about the file from the command line. By default srm uses the simple mode to overwrite the file's contents. You can choose a different overwrite mode with --dod, --doe, --openbsd, --rcmp, --gutmann. If you specify more than one mode option, the last option is used. You can use srm to overwrite block devices. The device node is not re- moved after overwriting. This feature is available on Linux. Files with multiple hard links will be unlinked but not overwritten. srm, like every program that uses the getopt function to parse its ar- guments, lets you use the -- option to indicate that all following ar- guments are non-options. To remove a file called `-f' in the current directory, you could type either rm -- -f or rm ./-f OPTIONS -d, --directory ignored (for compatibility with rm(1)) -f, --force ignore nonexistent files, never prompt -i, --interactive prompt before any removal -r, -R, --recursive remove the contents of directories recursively -x, --one-file-system when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any directory that is on a file system different from that of the corresponding command line argument. (Not supported on Windows) -s, --simple Overwrite the file with a single pass of 0x00 bytes. This is the default mode. -P, --openbsd OpenBSD compatible rm. Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte 0xFF, then 0x00, and then 0xFF again, before they are deleted. -D, --dod US Dod compliant 7-pass overwrite. -E, --doe US DoE compliant 3-pass overwrite. Twice with a random pattern, finally with the bytes "DoE". See http://cio.en- ergy.gov/CS-11_Clearing_and_Media_Sanitization_Guidance.pdf for details. -G, --gutmann Use the 35-pass Gutmann method. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method for details. -C, --rcmp Royal Canadian Mounted Police compliant 3-pass overwrite. First pass writes 0x00 bytes. Second pass writes 0xFF bytes. Third pass writes "RCMP". See https://www.cse- cst.gc.ca/en/node/270/html/10572 for details. -v, --verbose explain what is being done. Specify this option multiple times to increase verbosity. -h, --help display this help and exit. -V, --version output version information and exit. SIGNALS SIGINFO, SIGUSR2 show current write position and filename handled. ENTIRE HARD DISKS srm can write to block devices on Linux. You can use srm to securely delete an entire hard disk, however you should only do this for classic magnetic drives. The modern solid state disks (SSD) have a faster and better way to erase all contents, Secure Erase. For a Linux operating system see https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase NOTES srm can not remove write protected files owned by another user, regard- less of the permissions on the directory containing the file. Development and discussion of srm is carried out at https://source- forge.net/projects/srm/ which is also accessible via http://srm.source- forge.net/. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence for a gen- eral discussion about overwriting data. SEE ALSO rm(1) http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/core- utils.html#rm-invocation shred(1) http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/core- utils.html#shred-invocation wipe(1) http://lambda-diode.com/software/wipe secure-delete http://packages.debian.org/lenny/secure-delete scrub(1) http://code.google.com/p/diskscrub/ Matt Gauthier, Dirk Jagdmann 1.2.15 srm(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | SIGNALS | ENTIRE HARD DISKS | NOTES | SEE ALSO
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