Re: preventing undeleting on ext2?

Andrew E. Mileski (aem@nic.ott.hookup.net)
Fri, 3 Jan 1997 10:54:56 -0500 (EST)

> It used to be possable to prevent undelete by deleting a file, over
> writing it byte for byte, and deleting that file. But it seems that this
> no longer works under the newer kernels. How could one be prevented for
> undeleting files under the newer kernels? And info would be greatly
> appreaciated. Thanks.

I'd be amazed if that ever worked.

You have to over-write the file, and sync, _before_ you unlink it.
You can hold a file open THEN unlink it though - this will prevent
anyone else from opening the file while it is being over-written.
As long as a file is held open, its data is kept intact after an unlink.

--
Andrew E. Mileski   mailto:aem@ott.hookup.net
Linux Plug-and-Play Kernel Project http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/pnp/
XFree86 Matrox Team http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~ajv/xf86-matrox.html