SHRED(1)                                  User Commands                                  SHRED(1)



NAME
       shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it

SYNOPSIS
       shred [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION
       Overwrite  the  specified  FILE(s)  repeatedly,  in  order to make it harder for even very
       expensive hardware probing to recover the data.

       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, --remove[=HOW]
              truncate and remove file after overwriting; 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

       If FILE is -, shred standard output.

       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  disk.   The  default  mode  is
       'wipesync', but note it can be expensive.

       CAUTION: Note that shred relies on a very important assumption: that the file system over‐
       writes data in place.  This is the traditional way to do things, but many modern file sys‐
       tem designs do not satisfy this assumption.  The following are examples of file systems on
       which shred is not effective, or is not guaranteed to be  effective  in  all  file  system
       modes:

       *  log-structured  or  journaled file systems, such as those supplied with AIX and Solaris
       (and JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, Ext3, etc.)

       * file systems that write redundant data and carry on even if some writes  fail,  such  as
       RAID-based file systems

       * file systems that make snapshots, such as Network Appliance's NFS server

       * file systems that cache in temporary locations, such as NFS version 3 clients

       * compressed file systems

       In  the case of ext3 file systems, the above disclaimer applies (and shred is thus of lim‐
       ited effectiveness) only in data=journal mode, which journals file  data  in  addition  to
       just  metadata.   In both the data=ordered (default) and data=writeback modes, shred works
       as usual.  Ext3 journaling modes can be changed by adding the data=something option to the
       mount  options  for  a particular file system in the /etc/fstab file, as documented in the
       mount man page (man mount).

       In addition, file system backups and remote mirrors may contain copies of  the  file  that
       cannot be removed, and that will allow a shredded file to be recovered later.

AUTHOR
       Written by Colin Plumb.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report shred translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  ©  2014  Free  Software  Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or
       later <http://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.

SEE ALSO
       Full documentation at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/shred>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) shred invocation'



GNU coreutils 8.23                          March 2015                                   SHRED(1)