wiping of unused space on ext3

[Andreas Dilger]

On Sep 07, 2006  07:53 -0700, Wolber, Richard C wrote:
> I believe you can use the "chattr -s" command to mark all of the files
> so that when they are deleted, their blocks are wiped with zeros.

In theory yes, but this has never been implemented.

> I believe that you'd need to set up some sort of cron job to make sure
> all of the files have this attribute set on a regular basis, unless
> this works as a directory level attribute.

It should be inherited from the parent.  It is not currently functional
and is unlikely to ever make it into the kernel.  Instead, write a
shared library that hooks "unlink" and have it wipe your files from
userspace.  I think there is already a "libtrashcan" or similar that
will allow undelete in the same manner.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Principal Software Engineer
Cluster File Systems, Inc.