Re: ext3 et al

[Jim Meyering]

Nicholas Cole <address@hidden> wrote:
> With journaling file systems becoming more standard on many
> distributions, I wondered how this affects the working of the shred
> command.  Is it still possible to securely delete files from ext3?  Does
> the journaling mode selected (I believe that ext3 has three modes of
> operation) affect this?

I don't know the answers.
To be on the safe side, don't put anything you want to
be able to `shred' on a journaling file system.

>From shred --help:

  ...
  CAUTION: Note that shred relies on a very important assumption:
  that the filesystem overwrites data in place.  This is the traditional
  way to do things, but many modern filesystem designs do not satisfy this
  assumption.  The following are examples of filesystems on which shred is
  not effective:

  * log-structured or journaled filesystems, such as those supplied with
    AIX and Solaris (and JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, etc.)

  ...