GNU bug report logs - #18395
shred let me kill a mounted device

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: macetw <macetw <at> gmail.com>
To: Bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: shred let me kill a mounted device
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:32:19 -0700 (PDT)

It was a sad day for me yesterday, when I discovered that I accidentally
shred'ed my /home.

I expect the shred utility to notice that it's about to operate on a mounted
device, but it gave no such indication. Maybe an interactive prompt, like
"this disk is connected by USB | SATA | IDE" or "this disk is 250G in size",
some sanity check, and then a prompt, "Are you sure?" If disks are mounted,
it would say so.

Oh, my stuff is gone. <sad face>



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Message #8 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: macetw <macetw <at> gmail.com>
To: Bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: shred let me kill a mounted device
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:33:19 -0700 (PDT)

My version of shred is 8.21



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Message #11 received at 18395 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>
To: macetw <macetw <at> gmail.com>, 18395 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#18395: shred let me kill a mounted device
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 19:13:55 -0600

tags 18395 notabug
close 18395
stop

(triaging old bugs)

Hello,

On 03/09/14 07:32 AM, macetw wrote:
> I expect the shred utility to notice that it's about to operate on a mounted
> device, but it gave no such indication. 

It seems your email "fell between the cracks" and not replied to in many 
years. Sorry about that.

Regarding your suggestion:
Every file and every directory are essentially on a mounted device
(e.g. "/" is mounted from some physical drive, and so are all its
sub-directories).

As a side-note, please be aware the shred's effectiveness is
questionable with today's filesystems and hardware (see the warning
in the manual page).

As such, I'm closing this as "not a bug".
Discussion can continue by replying to this thread.

-assaf

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