shred allows only one file

Trio3b · 12-04-2005, 01:36 PM

Selling PC and would like to delete old files. Have been using following:

shred -vxn 5 <file>
or
shred vuxn 5 <file>

where v-verbose
x -exact file size
n 5 - number of shreds
u-remove file

Have also tried f to force, but after first file receive permission denied. If I delete individually all is OK. This will take too long. Is there a way to instruct to shred a group of files?

Any help appreciated
Thanks

stickman · 12-04-2005, 05:46 PM

You could use something like DBAN and clean the whole partition at once.

int0x80 · 12-05-2005, 12:59 PM

You could write a shell script to pass each file to shred:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

shredfiles="/path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 /path/to/file3"
for f in $shredfiles; do
  shred vuxn 5 $f;
done

I don't consider 5 overwrites to be secure. Usually I run shred with -vzu flags.
Also read other threads on the forum that would be helpful -- http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=363951

Trio3b · 12-05-2005, 09:48 PM

This may do the trick as I don't want to shred the whole disk or device (as shred is supposed to do). Just the files which are non critical financial stuff. Still a CL newb and never written a script before - Am assuming this will be entered in console as root?
Is there a quick way to list all the files (about 30 or 40)? Cut 'n paste? Would you mind explaining what each command is doing so I learn something?

Thanks

int0x80 · 12-05-2005, 11:46 PM

Look for a common pattern in your files (eg: they are all *xls files). It will be helpful if you can put them all in the same directory (eg: ~/shred).

Code:

mkdir ~/shred
cd dir1/
mv *xls ~/shred
cd ../dir2
mv *xls ~/shred
cd ~/shred
for i in `ls *xls`; do
shred -vzu $i;
done

What we've done is:
1. Created a directory (~/shred)
2. Moved our files to it (mv *xls ~/shred)
3. Changed our current working directory to the shred directory (cd ~/shred)
4. Iterated through the directory listing (for i in `ls *xls`; do)
5. Shredded each file (shred -vzu)

hth

Trio3b · 12-08-2005, 12:58 AM

Thanks, will give that a shot this weekend.

Hmm.. unfortunately the files are of different types such as scanned tiff, and openoffice writer and calc docs, but I guess I could do them as groups, however when I do the :
for i in *TIFF; do shred -vzu $i;

I delete my '/etc/profile.d/xhost/sh' file and the TIFF file is still there. Must have syntax wrong.