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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.

       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.


AUTHOR

       Written by Colin Plumb.


REPORTING BUGS

       GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>


COPYRIGHT

       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.


SEE ALSO

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



GNU coreutils 9.1                  April 2022                           shred(1)

coreutils 9.1 - Generated Fri Aug 12 11:41:37 CDT 2022
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