shred — overwrite a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it
shred
[OPTION
...] FILE
...
Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data.
If FILE is −, shred standard output.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
−f
, −−force
change permissions to allow writing if necessary
−n
, −−iterations
=N/overwrite N times instead of the default (3)
−−random−source
=FILE/get random bytes from FILE
−s
, −−size
=N/shred this many bytes (suffixes like K, M, G accepted)
−u
deallocate and remove file after overwriting
−−remove
[=HOW/]like −u
but give
control on HOW to delete; See below
−v
, −−verbose
show progress
−x
, −−exact
do not round file sizes up to the next full block;
this is the default for non−regular files
−z
, −−zero
add a final overwrite with zeros to hide shredding
−−help
display this help and exit
−−version
output version information and exit
Delete FILE(s) if −−remove
(−u
) is specified. The default is not to
remove the files because it is common to operate on device
files like /dev/hda/
, and those
files usually should not be removed. The optional HOW
parameter indicates how to remove a directory entry: 'unlink'
=> use a standard unlink call. 'wipe' => also first
obfuscate bytes in the name. 'wipesync' => also sync each
obfuscated byte to the device. The default mode is
'wipesync', but note it can be expensive.
CAUTION: shred assumes the file system and hardware overwrite data in place. Although this is common, many platforms operate otherwise. Also, backups and mirrors may contain unremovable copies that will let a shredded file be recovered later. See the GNU coreutils manual for details.
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/shred>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) shred invocation'
COPYRIGHT |
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Copyright © 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. |