[rescue] Wiping filesystems

[Carl R. Friend]

   Gavin asks:

> I've got an opportunity to rescue some nice Sun equipment from one
> of my clients. However I need to demonstrate that the filesystems
> have been completely destroyed before the disks are allowed to
> leave the site.

   The easiest way to do this is if the Sun gear boots now.  A simple
newfs will wipe the superblocks and inode tables which should make your
donor comfortable.  If that's not enough, a
"dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/dsk/cxtxdxs2" ought to do the trick by
writing zeroes across the pack.  s/zero/random/ id the donor is
really paranoid.  One can do this from a Linux system as well
by s%/dev/dsk/cxtxdxs2%/dev/dsk/sdx%.

   Usually proving that the filesystems are either empty (newfs)
or trashed (dd) is enough to sate donors. 

> Are there any linux disk images out there for this purpose? Since
> I need to trash the entire filesystem I need bootable CD with secure
> delete software on it e.g. wipe. 

   Can you get away with booing a Linux "rescue" setup and wiping
the target disks that way?

> Alternatively, is there a suitable utility that I can use on the
> Solaris install disks?

   See the dd option above.  Boot standalone from the boot CD and
have at it.

   What sort of hardware it it?

+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin)            | West Boylston       |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast            | Massachusetts, USA  |
| mailto:crfriend at rcn.com                        +---------------------+
| http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum           | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W |
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