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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 23 July 2002 3:20 pm, Alex Charrett wrote:
/dev/zero? tsk. /dev/random sounds much more fun to me, erm honest! :)
try generating <size of hard disk> bytes of random data from /dev/random.. /dev/random blocks when the entropy poool is empty, not only that, if you're running openssl/libcrypto of any sort in any daemons, prepare for it to block. SSH may well have a headfit or block on new connections too, depending on how it's set up on your box and what eentropy gatering source/daemon it's configured to use. dd'ing from /dev/random is find if you are using a small amount of data, but for a disk or gigbytes or even hundreds of megabytes is bad, bad, bad, unless it's a local desktop you dont't really care is it blocks/freezes for a bit. even so, dding from /sev/random will take a lot longer, especially with a few gigs. iirc gnupg has a file wiping util, or take a peek at wipe. alternativly, use /dev/zero, or /dev/urandom (which doesn't block) and run DD a fair few times on it. I think i heard somewhere that given any disk, it's still possible to read what was on it X number of writes before, though myabe i just imagiend that, or it was in some really bad computer film ;) take a look at drivers/char/random.c in the kernel source and the comments by theo tso for more info, or man 4 random. ~ Theo - -- Theo Zourzouvillys http://zozo.org.uk/ Q: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? A: The same middle name. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE9PW71448CrwpTn6YRAhBJAKCusu3t3QnJgyJhva1kDCB3UNgQ6ACfV5fw KxpIuXZsoGNpOVa0SItkcWk= =s5RR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.