Zerotools is a collection of software tools that simplify the process of maintaining secure and tidy virtual disks.
Zerotools is a Linux-specific project that offers a variety of tools to help keep virtual disks clean. One of the key features is the ability to fill binary zeroes to areas that are no longer in use. This can be done either manually or on-the-fly depending on your needs.
The on-the-fly mechanism uses LD_PRELOAD to wrap the unlink library call while zerounlink-wrapper utilizes a symlink based mechanism that targets individual programs to run using the unlink wrapper. For those who want to compare Zerotools against other solutions, there is an "Other solutions" section available.
It is important to note that Zerotools is not intended to compete with tools that rewrite file contents with "random" data to make data retrieval close to impossible.
The Zerotools project is implemented using C and licensed under GNU General Public License (v2). It is provided without a warranty and users should be aware that software bugs can occur.
Zerotools has been tested on various Linux distributions running kernels (2.4 and 2.6) and with glibc versions (2.3.2 to 2.5.3). Architectures that were tested include x86, x86_64, ia_64, and ppc (32-bit).
A known mis-feature in zerounlink is the inability to take into account sparse files when checking whether a file should be zeroed or not. This means that zerounlink would have to read through all of the original file and search for the non-zero content first, causing extra I/O operations. Users are encouraged to contact the developer if this feature is needed.
Finally, when reporting bugs, users are asked to include the listing number and line number of the problematic bit to speed up fixes. For web-related fixes, including a two to three-word phrase that can be grepped with is helpful. However, sending diffs against xhtml is not recommended. Overall, Zerotools is an effective set of tools worth considering for anyone looking to keep their virtual disks clean.
The on-the-fly mechanism uses LD_PRELOAD to wrap the unlink library call while zerounlink-wrapper utilizes a symlink based mechanism that targets individual programs to run using the unlink wrapper. For those who want to compare Zerotools against other solutions, there is an "Other solutions" section available.
It is important to note that Zerotools is not intended to compete with tools that rewrite file contents with "random" data to make data retrieval close to impossible.
The Zerotools project is implemented using C and licensed under GNU General Public License (v2). It is provided without a warranty and users should be aware that software bugs can occur.
Zerotools has been tested on various Linux distributions running kernels (2.4 and 2.6) and with glibc versions (2.3.2 to 2.5.3). Architectures that were tested include x86, x86_64, ia_64, and ppc (32-bit).
A known mis-feature in zerounlink is the inability to take into account sparse files when checking whether a file should be zeroed or not. This means that zerounlink would have to read through all of the original file and search for the non-zero content first, causing extra I/O operations. Users are encouraged to contact the developer if this feature is needed.
Finally, when reporting bugs, users are asked to include the listing number and line number of the problematic bit to speed up fixes. For web-related fixes, including a two to three-word phrase that can be grepped with is helpful. However, sending diffs against xhtml is not recommended. Overall, Zerotools is an effective set of tools worth considering for anyone looking to keep their virtual disks clean.
What's New
Version 0.1.2: N/A