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Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2017 23:14:45 +1000 (EST)
From: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au>
To: Doug Hardie <doug@sermon-archive.info>
cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Unusual Question
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In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 683, Issue 8, Message: 1
On Sun, 9 Jul 2017 02:57:14 -0700 Doug Hardie <doug@mail.sermon-archive.info> wrote:

 > I have a FreeBSD 9.3 remote server that needs to be purged.  I know 
 > that rm -rf / will remove all the directory entries, but I need to 
 > write over the drive.  I thought that dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ada0 
 > might do the trick, but it gives an not permitted error.  The whole 
 > thing can crash and burn at the end.  This is an unmanned site so 
 > moving drives is not viable.

# sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16

purge at will.  if=/dev/random for the more paranoid :)

cheers, Ian