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Date:      Mon, 21 May 2018 12:36:05 +1000
From:      Michelle Sullivan <michelle@sorbs.net>
To:        Alex Aminoff <aminoff@nber.org>, freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Can one remove a specific file from all snapshots?
Message-ID:  <4b59e335-9140-5d29-4177-00bc33d65980@sorbs.net>
In-Reply-To: <38792b3b-04db-0c7f-c9a4-3f55b908a427@nber.org>
References:  <38792b3b-04db-0c7f-c9a4-3f55b908a427@nber.org>

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Alex Aminoff wrote:
>
> The use case here is that we have data sets of sensitive data that we 
> are contractually obligated to delete with no backups at a certain 
> point in time. The datasets are stored on a ZFS filesystem (on a 
> truenas from IxSystems as it happens). The snapshots are kept for 15 
> days, so at the moment we have to rm the files 15 days before the 
> deadline to be compliant. Is there a way to delete a specific file 
> from the live filesystem as well as all the snapshots?
>
> I did find a post to this list from 2014:
>
> https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2014-October/020307.html
>
> but I don't think it is relevant, and in any case it does not appear 
> that the feature that post describes was implemented.

Considering 'copy on write' nature of ZFS you might find the only option 
is to stop using ZFS for full compliance (it is the reason certain 
contracts I have been involved with have specifically warned of use of 
certain filesystems types with and without encryption.)

Of course if it's making use of an appliance/existing hardware that uses 
ZFS by default/design you could always do something smart like creating 
a zvol for said data and formatting it with an FS type that doesn't do 
copy-on-write and doesn't have that type of snapshops etc... perhaps 
with a software mirror zvol if it's redundancy you're after... perhaps 
as a 'this is your secure/non snapshotted' drive export tag etc... 100's 
of solutions depending on the client needs.

Regards,

-- 
Michelle Sullivan
http://www.mhix.org/




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