Customizing to wipe drives at boot.

[kevo]

I would like to create a customized image that will do the following and I am not even sure if it is possible.
I would like the image to boot and immediately determine the number of installed drives ide/scsi/raid and use the dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hdX command to wipe each one of these drives and display a message when completed indicating sucess or failure.
Then I would like to upon some kind of user intervention keystroke ect. show a listing of the installed hardware like:
processor type
processor speed
amount of ram
hard drives and sizes
network cards
optical drives
sound card type
video card type.
I have investigated it somewhat and think that I probably have to run a script at init and that is about all I have learned. The command for wiping the hard drives seems to be a unterminated perl loop so I was interested in how/if that could be used to automatically move to the next drive when the first has completed?
Can anyone point me to sample scripts or help me understand if it is possible to do before I spend time testing only to be disappointed.
I work for a recycling company that refurbishes computers and has to destroy lots of data and would like to do it with Linux not a shredder. We have a dos based solution that works great but would like more flexibility that linux offers.

Thanks in advance
Kevo

[Fabianx]

I would like to create a customized image that will do the following and I am not even sure if it is possible.
I would like the image to boot and immediately determine the number of installed drives ide/scsi/raid and use the dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hdX command to wipe each one of these drives and display a message when completed indicating sucess or failure.
Then I would like to upon some kind of user intervention keystroke ect. show a listing of the installed hardware like:
processor type
processor speed
amount of ram
hard drives and sizes
network cards
optical drives
sound card type
video card type.
I have investigated it somewhat and think that I probably have to run a script at init and that is about all I have learned. The command for wiping the hard drives seems to be a unterminated perl loop so I was interested in how/if that could be used to automatically move to the next drive when the first has completed?
Can anyone point me to sample scripts or help me understand if it is possible to do before I spend time testing only to be disappointed.
I work for a recycling company that refurbishes computers and has to destroy lots of data and would like to do it with Linux not a shredder. We have a dos based solution that works great but would like more flexibility that linux offers.

Thanks in advance
Kevo

It is easily possible:

BE CAREFUL WITH THE SCRIPT THAT FOLLOWS!

Just add a knoppix.sh as follows to:

/cdrom/KNOPPIX/knoppix.sh:

#!/bin/bash

DISKS=$(cat /proc/partitions | awk '{ if ($4!="name") { print $4 } }' | egrep -v "[0-9]$");

for i in $DISKS;
do
[ -f "/proc/ide/$i/model" ] && MODEL="$(cat /proc/ide/$i/model)" || MODEL=$"model unknown"
cat /proc/partitions | awk '{ if ($4=="'$i'") { printf("Wiping %s / '"$MODEL"' (%s GB) ...",$4,($3*1024/1000/1000/1000))}}'
#dd of=/dev/random if=/dev/$i
echo "Done"
done

Thats it. (Well there is a hidden mistake; sorry code is to dangerous to post it 100% working)

Don't try this at home kids!

cu

Fabian

[sld1]

I have done this work for some clients, but more for the datacenter server world. My program inventories and wipes drives.

Nothing out there got all the inventory data or worked on arrays with some of the scsi controllers I ran into.

I built custom kernels for Alpha, Risc, and Sparc, net booted, and then used my program to erase disk arrays. I dumbed it down and ported it to KNOPPIX for the PC world. Let me know if this is a commercial/ corporate/ or personal application and I would be happy to discuss.

I'm donating my dumbed down version for personal use and will probably make it available for free in the near future.

[Ambrose]

I created a similary type KNOPPIX.

It booted up, grabbed bcwipe from my site as well as a script that would parse the output from /proc/partitions and run bcwipe on all partitions.

I didn't setup any user interface for it, as it wasn't needed for the project.

BCWipe: http://www.jetico.com/linux.htm

- Ambrose