I've always wondered, when you first view
all the drives, why drives above 999GB appeared
in their GB nomenclature instead of TB. For
instance a 2TB drive would appear as 2000GB.
Unlike other places in nwipe that does a proper
job of describing capacity just this one location
in the program was wrong.
This information was obtained by a call to a function
in libparted. Maybe when libparted was written there
was no such thing as a TByte drive ?? Who knows, so
anyway it was far easier to use nwipes build in function
called 'determine_C_B_nomenclature()' This provides us
with the correct nomenclature that is a fixed number of
digits (three) and prefixed with spaces so the length
is always the same. In the GUI this gives a nice
list when viewing multiple drives that appears in neat
columns.
Add serial number support for USB devices for USB
to IDE/SATA adapters. Note this will only work
with USB IDE/SATA adapters that support ATA pass
through. See #149 for further details of
supported devices.
This patch requires readlink and smartmontools (smartctl)
to be installed. If not installed the serial number for
supported USB hardware will be missing.
The device type, i.e USB or ATA is now shown on the selection
and wipe windows.
In Debian Sid dmidecode is not found as /sbin is not
searched when nwipe only specifies 'dmidecode', so
if it fails then it will next try /sbin/dmidecode
which is where it's normally located if it's installed.
In ubuntu etc, the sudo environment is setup so /sbin
is automatically searched.
I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not keen on the
way the status line length changes every few seconds
depending on whether nwipe is syncing or not. So
while still retaining the syncing message I think
it looks better if when not syncing, [syncing] is
replaced with [-------]. This keeps the status line
length pretty much constant and I find it easier on
my eyes.
Fix throughput so it shows the average throughput
calculated from the start of the wipe.
Because we currently use cached access to the disks
initially for a few seconds or minute the throughput looks high
as nwipes writes are cached in memory before being written to disc.
When we change to a non cached or nwipe buffered model the
throughput will reflect a throughput that is actual
disc throughput.
Using an averaged throughput means that when the wipe finishes it will show
a higher value than the previous calculation but this new calculation is the
actual averaged speed of the wipe and reflects a value that is closer to what
you would expect a given drive to exhibit.
For instance a 160GB WD1600AAJS using Dod-S, B+VL, using the old
calculation would finish with a throughput of 48MB/s, using the
new calculation it finishes with a throughput of 76MB/s. This was tested
over multiple wipes and multiple rounds and gave consistently similiar
results.
Throughput is not so accurate on small loop drives due to the fact the drive
is so small it fits within CPU memory so when reading back to verify your're
actually reading back from cache not the disk. Another reason I want to move
to non cached I/O and have nwipe manage buffering and size of block writes.
If a sudo kill -s USR1 (Nwipe's PID) is issued
on the command line while nwipe is operating in
--nogui mode, ETA is now displayed along with
percentage completion, pass and round information.
Note! Because we rely upon cached I/O at the moment
the calculated ETA early in the wipe is very inaccurate
but becomes more accurate as CPU memory cache is filled.
If the system is shutdown while nwipe is still
wiping, the duration calculation would be
incorrect. This patch fixes that problem, so for
instance if a UPS signals the system running nwipe to
shutdown, nwipe typically traps that signal and
exits in an orderly manner. The log summary
is generated showing the wipe was aborted and
the wipe duration shows a valid value i.e the
elapsed time since the start of the wipe.
Add a summary table to the log that shows each drives status
i.e. erased or failed, throughput, duration of wipe, model,
serial no etc. In particular it benefits those that wipe many
drives simultaneously in rack servers. At a glance any failed
drives can be seen without having to browse back through the
log. Especially useful in --nogui mode, but also useful in GUI
mode.
Add a spinner to the GUI for each drive being wiped.
When nwipe is syncing the percentage completion pauses,
having a spinner gives a clear indication that the wipe
is still running. Each devices spinner disappears on completion
of a given devices wipe.
1. Keep nwipe_log notices succinct and below 80 chars in length including
timestamp. This is especially relevant for 80x30 terminal use such
as ALT-F2 etc or Shredos without losing any information.
2. Add [SUCCESS] to blanked & verified messages to make them stand out for quicker checking.
