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Date:      Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:54:58 -0500 (EST)
From:      Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
To:        Barrett Richardson <barrett@phoenix.aye.net>
Cc:        Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org>, TrouBle <trouble@netquick.net>, David G Andersen <danderse@cs.utah.edu>, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: secure filesystem wiping
Message-ID:  <199911190454.XAA42975@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.01.9911182331400.18537-100000@phoenix.aye.net>
References:  <38347633.22E76DE0@softweyr.com> <Pine.BSF.4.01.9911182331400.18537-100000@phoenix.aye.net>

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<<On Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:37:34 -0500 (EST), Barrett Richardson <barrett@phoenix.aye.net> said:

> How about pseudo-random data? Aren't the passes with random data just
> a little extra icing?

The random(3) PRNG has a period of 2^69 (in its most secure mode), so
I'd suggest that it probably is good enough.  Just initialize thusly:

	static char statebuf[256];
	initstate(1, statebuf, sizeof statebuf);
	srandomdev();

> Also, will my system choke if I mmap a 250 MB file on a system
> with 32 MB of ram?

Not at all.  Demand paging works just the same for files as it does
for swap.  If you look at the output of `systat -v', you'll probably
see that you already have many times the size of main memory mapped --
on my 64-MB desktop machine, I have almost 3 GB of extant memory
mappings.  It is possible, though, that madvise(..., MADV_SEQUENTIAL)
might give better behavior.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman   | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wollman@lcs.mit.edu  | O Siem / The fires of freedom 
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA|                     - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick


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