Question about cat /dev/zero > zerofile; rm zerofile

canam101 · Post by **canam101** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:02 pm

Each night, my scheduler, kalarm, runs the command cat /dev/zero > zerofile; rm zerofile

As I understand it, this really deletes all of the deleted but potentially recoverable files in /home/user.

My question is, does it also delete the recoverable files in the directories and sub-directories in /home/user? If it does not, is there some command I can run that will do that?

Bill Gates · Post by **Bill Gates** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 5:15 am

Yes, that command will overwrite all the removed files on your partition with zeros.

I'm pretty sure that it isn't totally impossible for somebody to recover the files after your overwrite them, but that should make it a lot more difficult.

canam101 · Post by **canam101** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 6:43 am

Thank you.

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Question about cat /dev/zero > zerofile; rm zerofile

Question about cat /dev/zero > zerofile; rm zerofile

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