Wipe Free Space

This is a program which will securely wipe (clean, shred, fill, overwrite) the free space on an ext2, ext3, ext4, NTFS, XFS, ReiserFSv3, ReiserFSv4, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, MinixFSv1, MinixFSv2, JFS, HFS+ and OCFS partition or drive, just like the shred program securely wipes files.

WipeFreeSpace wipes the following things (when supported by the backing library):

• free space (space in unused blocks/clusters)
• free space in partially used blocks (also called the "slack space")
• deleted files' names and other data that can be used to undelete a file (like the journal)

WipeFreeSpace does NOT decrease the amount of available free space when working.

Requirements for compiling the full version:

• a non-root account. Please, NEVER compile or 'make' anything as root.
  
  
• a working C compiler. XFS, ReiserFS and NTFS support require the 'long long' data type.
  
  
• the 'make' program
  
  
• development package for the C library (like glibc-devel and glibc-headers).
  XFS support reuires the following headers: unistd.h, fcntl.h, mntent.h (but sys/wait.h, sched.h and paths.h can be useful, too) and the following functions: fork(), execvp(), dup2(), close(), pipe() and one of waitpid(), wait() or kill() (sleep() can be useful, too). Both ReiserFS require mntent.h to work (but will compile without it).
  
  
• Ext2/3/4: development package for the ext2 file system library, libext2fs (usually included in something like e2fsprogs-devel). If you don't have anything like this installed or available (check twice), then go to e2fsprogs.sf.net. Then compile and install that package. Ext4 support requires new versions, like 1.41.
  
  
• NTFS: development package for the NTFS file system library, libntfs (usually included in something like ntfsprogs-devel). If you don't have anything like this installed or available (check twice), then go to www.linux-ntfs.org. Then compile and install that package. You can also use ntfs3g-ntfsprogs: www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download. Remember to copy all the *.h files from the include directory to the destination "include" directory (like /usr/include/ntfs/).
  
  
• XFS: xfsprogs installed and in your PATH variable, if you want XFS support. Get these at oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/.
  The following utilities should be available: xfs_db, xfs_freeze, xfs_unfreeze. The xfs_db program should support the following command-line options: -i, -c and the following interactive mode commands: quit, freesp -d, blockget -n, ncheck, sb 0, print. Version 2.7.11 is enough, earlier versions will probably also work.
  
  
• ReiserFSv3: development package for reiserfsprogs (header files and compiled static *.a libraries from the package). ReiserFS requires the fork() function (unistd.h) and one of: waitpid(), wait() (sys/wait.h).
  
  
• Reiser4: development package for reiser4progs, libuuid (e2fsprogs or e2fsprogs-libs) and libaal. Go to www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiser4/ and e2fsprogs.sf.net to get the libraries. After installing, libmisc.a needs to be copied in the same place as libreiser4.a, but under a different name - libreiser4misc.a:

  cp libmisc/.libs/libmisc.a /usr/lib/libreiser4misc.a

  Libmisc.a is in reiser4progs, of course. Nobody thought it would be needed, but libreiser4.a is useless without it. Substitute the correct destination path for your system in the above command.
  
  
• FAT12/16/32: tffs-lib, the Tiny FAT FS library. Go to code.google.com/p/tffs-lib to get the library. After compiling, install the library and ALL its header files *.h (including the private ones, from the src directory).
  
  
• MinixFS: "mfstool", the MinixFS tool. Go to mfstool.sf.net to get this program. Before compiling, perform:

  sed -i 's/opt_squash/0/g' `ls *.c | egrep -v main`

  then compile the program (./configure && make), then perform

  ar surf libminixfs.a `ls *.o | egrep -v main`

  Then copy the files libminixfs.a, minix_fs.h and protos.h to a directory where the C compiler can find them (or put the correct -I and -L options in the compiler flags). You can use the provided patches to do this instead of the sed command:

  patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/mfstool-0.5.diff

  
  
  
• JFS: jfsutils and libuuid (the <uuid/uuid.h> header file). Go to jfs.sf.net to get jfsutils. Libuuid can be a part of "util-linux-ng", which can be found on the kernel site: ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng or as a part of e2fsprogs available at e2fsprogs.sf.net.
  Compile jfsutils, then copy all the jfs_*.h header files from the "include" subdirectory and the libfs.a file to a directory where the C compiler can find them (or put the correct -I and -L options in the compiler flags).
  
  
• HFS+: the "hfsplus" package. Go to launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/hfsplus_1.0.4.orig.tar.gz to get it. Before compiling, apply the patch:

  patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/hfsplus-1.0.4.diff

  After compiling, install all the libraries and ALL the *.h header files from the libhfsp/src/ directory where the C compiler can find them (or put the correct -I and -L options in the compiler flags).
  
  
• OCFS: the "ocfs2-tools" series 1.6.x package (other versions also work, but disable wiping undelete data in such case). Go to http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2-tools/ to get it. Then compile and install that package.

find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/misc_mntent/new_misc_mntent/g' '{}' \;

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/reiser-3.6.XX.diff

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/reiser4-1.0.7.diff

find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/die/new_die/g' '{}' \;

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/mfstool-0.5.diff

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/reiser-3.6.XX.diff

find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/bread/new_bread/g' '{}' \;

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/jfsutils-1.1.11.diff

patch -F10 -p1 < /path/to/wipefreespace-XX/patches/reiser-3.6.XX.diff

• libc.so.6 (glibc >= 2.7)
• libcom_err.so.2 (usually from a "e2fsprogs" package)
• libext2fs.so.2 (usually from a "e2fsprogs" package)
• libcap.so.2
• libntfs.so.10 (ntfsprogs package)
• libuuid.so.1 (UUID_1.0) (e2fsprogs or e2fsprogs-libs)
• libaal-1.0.so.5 (libaal)
• libreiser4-1.0.so.7 (reiser4progs)
• xfsprogs
• rtld(GNU_HASH)
• libhfsp.so.0

Known issues:

• Wiping partially used blocks after wiping undelete data (or vice-versa) fails on FAT. Run the program two times to pass this problem: wipefreespace --nopart some_fat_fs, wipefreespace --nounrm some_fat_fs.
• Wiping partially used blocks on XFS may not work if xfsprogs translations are installed and used (xfs_db displays messages in a language other than English). Use non-translated xfsprogs (or remove all the translations), if possible, or try to set the language for WipeFreeSpace: LC_ALL=en_US wipefreespace some_xfs_fs.
• Wiping undelete data on a Reiser4 filesystem may not always work.
• WipeFreeSpace may fail to detect that it's wiping a loop device mounted in read+write mode.

Wipe Free Space GUI

Screenshots of Wipe Free Space

System compatibility

• Fedora Core 4 GNU/Linux (i686 CPU) (tested up to version 1.2)
• Fedora 12 GNU/Linux (i686 CPU) (tested from version 1.3 onwards)
• Mandriva 2008.1 GNU/Linux (i686 CPU)
• Mandriva 2011 GNU/Linux (i686 CPU) - from version 1.5 onwards (earlier not checked)
• OpenBSD 3.8 (only XFS support tested; x86 CPU; tested up to version 1.3)
• MyBook WorldEditionII GNU/Linux (only ext2/3/4 support tested; ARM CPU)
• Debian 5.0 GNU/Linux (x86 CPU) - versions from 1.4 (earlier not checked)
• CentOS 6.3 (version 1.7.2; ext2/3/4 and NTFS support tested)

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