nwipe (Secure Disk Eraser) with Preclear

nwipe-0.39 was forked and now includes a custom "Unraid Preclear" method.

This allows you to pre-clear your disks within nwipe, while keeping the original functionality.

For pre-clearing disks on non-Unraid systems, check out the Live CD / Docker container:

https://github.com/desertwitch/nwipe-pc#readme

 

You want to RMA a disk? You want to sell a disk? Feeling a bit anxious about it?

This helps you make sure your precious data on it is gone for good, before you do.

 

nwipe is a fork of the dwipe command originally used by Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN).

nwipe is a program that will securely erase the entire contents of disks.

 

It can wipe a single disk or multiple disks simultaneously.

It can operate as both a command line tool without a GUI or with a ncurses GUI.

 

It provides a convenient PDF confirmation that your disk was in fact erased.

The confirmation also includes relevant SMART values, e.g. for prospective buyers.

 

 

Here's the websites with the project and documentations:

https://github.com/desertwitch/nwipe-pc

https://github.com/martijnvanbrummelen/nwipe

https://linux.die.net/man/1/nwipe

 

Installable via Community Applications

 

Are there any failsafes to keep folks from wiping mounted drives?

5 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Are there any failsafes to keep folks from wiping mounted drives?

 

Yes, you have to consciously select the target device in the GUI (which shows the disk ID and diskspace) and then double-confirm to actually wipe it.  In that sense, for a Linux command-line utility, it's pretty generous with confirmations (as opposed to e.g. rm) before doing anything. I attached the project repository and manpages to the top post, so it's more visible that I just made this available for Unraid and am not the creator of the tool (which exists on multiple OS).

 

But thanks a lot for the idea, I did now add a warning message to the starter script, to not wipe any disks which are still still part of an array or pool. 🙂 

 

Edited June 22, 20242 yr by Rysz

Gui not launching 

3 minutes ago, drmetro said:

Gui not launching 

 

Can you take a screenshot of what's happening?

What version of Unraid are you on?

@Rysz Thanks for adding cool plugins to Unraid.

Maybe it's good solution to add to unraid Gui the app icon where we can just enable or disable plugin if not needed for now? 

Offcourse we can just remove or install plugin also. 

1 hour ago, Masterwishx said:

@Rysz Thanks for adding cool plugins to Unraid.

Maybe it's good solution to add to unraid Gui the app icon where we can just enable or disable plugin if not needed for now? 

Offcourse we can just remove or install plugin also. 

 

The plugin system offers no way for a plugin to be activated or deactivated at the moment.

It's generally safe to keep this plugin installed (it doesn't do anything without user interaction), but you can also uninstall it until you need it.

What does this do that zeroing a drive doesn't?

Am I right that it can only wipe unassigned devices with destructive mode turned on?

On 8/24/2024 at 5:44 PM, Goldmaster said:

What does this do that zeroing a drive doesn't?

Am I right that it can only wipe unassigned devices with destructive mode turned on?

 

It's just another tool for the job, it has multiple algorithms (DOD Short, DOD Long, Gutmann,...) for safe erasure and respective verification mechanisms. It's more oriented at secure erasing rather than zeroing the drive for practical reasons. No, it can wipe any connected device and has nothing to do with UD and/or destructive mode. But it probably shouldn't be used on drives which are still part of the array, so in that sense best to use it on "unassigned" and unmounted drives.

On 8/26/2024 at 4:09 AM, Rysz said:

No, it can wipe any connected device and has nothing to do with UD and/or destructive mode.

So in theory, it could wipe array drives if they were accidentally selected and thus cause data loss?

Just now, Goldmaster said:

So in theory, it could wipe array drives if they were accidentally selected and thus cause data loss?

 

Sure, same as with any other Linux terminal command (rm, dd, ...) that's run without double checking.

Although this program actually makes you confirm your selection again, which most Linux terminal commands don't.

@Rysz Thank you very much for tool. I have 2 questions 1. I started the Putty Console on PC. How can I track the progress over the next few days? 2. Where can I find the PFD later?

9 hours ago, SvensenDE said:

@Rysz Thank you very much for tool. I have 2 questions 1. I started the Putty Console on PC. How can I track the progress over the next few days? 2. Where can I find the PFD later?

 

You'd have to use `screen` or `tmux` or otherwise keep your Putty window open all the time.

You will later find the PDF in the folder that you ran the `nwipe` command from... 🙂 

This might be a stupid question, but how do I access an existing nwipe session if the terminal window gets closed out? I remotely connected into my server from my laptop and started an nwipe session through the Unraid terminal, but it's projected to take a week or so. I closed the window after letting it run a bit, but when I typed nwipe in the terminal later trying to pull it back up to see where it's at, it brought be back to the initial wipe wizard. Does closing the UI out after launching a wipe cancel the wipe and if not, how do I view wipe operations in progress if I open a terminal from a later or separate browser session?

If you first run ‘screen’ from the command line then the command will continue to run when the command line session closes.   You can reconnect to the previous ‘screen’ session by starting a new command line session and issuing the ‘screen -r’ command.

Hmm, I opened Unraid in my browser and then clicked the terminal button to launch a new terminal window. When I enter 'screen', I get 'command not found'. I also tried, 'screen nwipe', but that didn't do anything either. Anything I'm missing here?

After a little quick reading on Screen, it looks like tmux is an alternative built into Unraid. I'm a dweeb when it comes to Linux CLI, so it took a brief read to learn it, but tmux did exactly what I needed to with managing CLI sessions. Thanks for the help!

I've added a custom wipe method for pre-clearing Unraid disks as part of the latest update.

This is not to replace the official plugin, but to offer an alternative for power users used to and liking nwipe.

I'm hoping to (maybe) eventually get this included in the original nwipe program, but for that it needs more testing.

While I've tested it personally, please report successes or failures adding nwipe pre-cleared disks to the array here.

A core motivation was wishing to pre-clear on non-Unraid systems, so there's also a multi-architecture Docker container:

https://github.com/desertwitch/nwipe-pc/pkgs/container/nwipe-pc

The container allows to prepare new disks without putting/wiping them in a production system, or to keep pre-cleared spares.

You could now theoretically even do pre-clears on a Raspberry Pi with the disk connected over USB... if you're patient enough! 🫠

Thanks for the plugin, it works nicely.

I tried to use Unraid's notification system to let me know when the preclear had finished. I used this:

nwipe && /usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/notify -i "alert" -s "Disk Wipe Complete" -d "The nwipe process finished successfully on $(date)."

The notification was sent, but unfortunately only after I'd checked in and seen that the process had finished, then pressed enter on the main screen to exit.

Is there a way to be notified when the preclear has finished?

14 hours ago, -C- said:

Thanks for the plugin, it works nicely.

I tried to use Unraid's notification system to let me know when the preclear had finished. I used this:

nwipe && /usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/notify -i "alert" -s "Disk Wipe Complete" -d "The nwipe process finished successfully on $(date)."

The notification was sent, but unfortunately only after I'd checked in and seen that the process had finished, then pressed enter on the main screen to exit.

Is there a way to be notified when the preclear has finished?

Yes, check out the autonuke non-interactive invocations - see nwipe -h for details.

Using that your invocation with the && followed by the notification agent should work. 😉