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    #16
    Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

    SECTION 2 go my attention. var/log files keep adding up. Especially dmesg and syslog files get compressed and new ones take their place. I have never had reason to view them. I'm sure at some point they could come in handy. Right now, not a problem, but over time, if I were to just upgrade then they could add up.
    Boot Info Script

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      #17
      Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

      Originally posted by verndog
      SECTION 2 go my attention. var/log files keep adding up. Especially dmesg and syslog files get compressed and new ones take their place. I have never had reason to view them. I'm sure at some point they could come in handy. Right now, not a problem, but over time, if I were to just upgrade then they could add up.
      They don't add up indefinitely.

      There's a logrotate cron job that rotates the logs and removes oldest back-logs...some back-logs are kept longer than others by default (and it's fully configurable via logrotate configuration)

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        #18
        Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

        Thanks Qqmike - wow you packed a lot into that guide as well as your dd command thread. These are great references with lots of examples.

        A few notes...

        I believe it is safe to delete /var/tmp/kdecache-mike/http/* and var/tmp/kdecache-mike/favicons/* .
        Yes, these can be deleted while KDE is running - I've never had a problem with that.

        To emphasize a point, two important directories are applications and configuration files:
        /home/your_name/.kde/share/apps
        /home/your_name/.kde/share/config
        For each application (e.g., kate), you need to study what is under these two directories.
        Just to clarify, those folders only apply to KDE apps. Other apps may store info in ~/.config, ~/.<app-name>, or elsewhere in the home folder.

        In describing kscrubber:
        The default for srm is that it will write two passes of zeros to a file before deleting it... The --onepass option runs it with just one zero-fill pass.
        Actually the default for srm is 38 passes of random data. The default for kscrubber is two random passes (srm -l). And kscrubber "--onepass" option also uses random, not zeros (srm -ll). I'm not a big believer in zero-wiping.

        -- shred
        Another thing you might mention in comparing shred is that unlike srm, shred has no recursion (-r) option, whereas srm does. I also believe srm handles the filesystems better, using fsync, flushing disk caches, and other features.

        disk full;
        On this note, I recently noticed that my kubuntu system has grown by over 1G since I installed it! I don't see any obvious cause - it's not in the /home, /var, or /tmp folders.

        BTW another great tool for seeing disk usage in a visual way is Filelight (in the repos).

        Check out my blog for useful scripts and tips... http://igurublog.wordpress.com

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          #19
          Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

          Also, you did a nice job with your example scripts section, particularly relating to permissions and ownership. Many times people save scripts as user and run them as user, which opens security problems, as I discuss in this article. It is indeed much safer to always save your scripts as root in a root-owned folder, and run them from there, even if you are running them as a non-root user.
          Check out my blog for useful scripts and tips... http://igurublog.wordpress.com

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            #20
            Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

            @ IgnorantGuru,

            Many thanks for checking the how-to! That's the kind of feedback we need around here

            I made all the changes/clarifications/explanations you recommended (in the several places they occur throughout my how-to); I also used your last post and link regarding permissions (it is added as a quote at the end of the subsection on writing your own script).


            As for the 1 GB boogy-man--disk space--I'm sure you checked Trash (including under /root), and how about root's home? Since you are cleaning the log files, it wouldn't be there (indicating a real problem in your system, although, as kubicle says, they get rotated and won't grow indefinitely). For me, every time it's happened, it's been in /root somewhere (ever use PhotoRec?! -- it'll fill up your partition in a heartbeat, under /root, esp if running multiple passes). I'd be curious to know where you find it when you do, if you care to post it here.

            Again, many thanks for checking the how-to and for your very good suggestions for improving it and the corrections.

            An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

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              #21
              Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

              A lot of work went into creating this. Thanks Qqmike!

              I'm interested in the "cleaners"
              I heard just recently about BleachBit. I installed it but didn't like the way it ran and some of the files it wanted to clean.

              I see you recommended kscrubber. I'll give that a go. Under Windows I have more confidence on CCleaner.
              Boot Info Script

              Comment


                #22
                Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                Originally posted by Qqmike
                As for the 1 GB boogy-man--disk space--I'm sure you checked Trash (including under /root), and how about root's home?
                /root is a good suggestion - didn't think of that as I don't normally find it there, but that isn't it. But I'm not sure about the totals - may not be as bad as 1G. Here is the picture before and after running kscrubber again this morning...
                Code:
                root# du -xh --max-depth=1 /                     
                0    /dev                                 
                16K   /media                                
                536K  /root                                 
                81M   /opt                                 
                13M   /lib32                                
                14M   /etc                                 
                4.0K  /selinux                               
                80K   /tmp                                 
                0    /proc                                 
                0    /sys                                 
                2.9G  /usr                                 
                193M  /home                                 
                5.9M  /bin                                 
                494M  /lib                                 
                4.0K  /srv                                 
                16K   /mnt                                 
                59M   /boot                                 
                11M   /sbin                                 
                345M  /var                                 
                16K   /lost+found                              
                4.1G  /       
                                            
                root# kscrubber --clean                             
                ...
                
                root# du -xh --max-depth=1 /
                0    /dev
                16K   /media
                532K  /root
                81M   /opt
                13M   /lib32
                14M   /etc
                4.0K  /selinux
                60K   /tmp
                0    /proc
                0    /sys
                2.9G  /usr
                193M  /home
                5.9M  /bin
                494M  /lib
                4.0K  /srv
                16K   /mnt
                59M   /boot
                11M   /sbin
                341M  /var
                16K   /lost+found
                4.1G  /
                So I figure the growth has to be in /usr, unless it's spread around. It's a 5G partition, and when I installed it there was 3.55G of files (I know because I made a partition backup). Now du says 4.1G. But Krusader shows 487M free out of 4.9G, which is 4.4G consumed. So depending on which numbers I believe it appears it grew by 600-900MB. I even tried deleting /var/tmp the other day but that didn't help.

                Anyway I probably won't do anything further with it for now. It's just odd - I've never seen a linux install grow that much. If it gets much larger I may have to roll it back and then update carefully to see what did it.
                Check out my blog for useful scripts and tips... http://igurublog.wordpress.com

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                  For /usr:
                  In my heavily used 8.04.3, I'm getting 1.9 G
                  In my barely used 9.10, I also get 1.9 G.
                  (using du)
                  An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                    @IG

                    How many 'new' kernels have been installed since you installed?
                    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
                    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                      I have 3 kernels and all the files PLUS /grub, and it's only 75 MB. So it would take a heck of a lot of kernels to fill that much space reported by I-G.
                      An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                        That was a good question, Snowhog. I had 31-14 thru -17 installed, so I removed -14 thru -16 in Synaptic (linux-image and linux-headers for each). That reported it would remove 587MB! Like Qqmike seems to be saying, I didn't think the kernels used that much, just the space they took in /boot. But apparently there's much more than that. I wonder that I never noticed this before, unless it's something new with Karmic.

                        Code:
                        0    /dev
                        16K   /media
                        540K  /root
                        81M   /opt
                        13M   /lib32
                        14M   /etc
                        4.0K  /selinux
                        44K   /tmp
                        0    /proc
                        0    /sys
                        2.7G  /usr
                        193M  /home
                        5.9M  /bin
                        145M  /lib
                        4.0K  /srv
                        16K   /mnt
                        17M   /boot
                        11M   /sbin
                        333M  /var
                        16K   /lost+found
                        3.5G  /
                        So that accounts for the lower end of my 600MB-900MB measurement. Even if that's not all I could do, it's certainly enough. Looks like it mostly came out of /usr and /lib. Did a reboot and everything seems okay. Thanks for the ideas.
                        Check out my blog for useful scripts and tips... http://igurublog.wordpress.com

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Privacy Cleanup 101



                          The other thing to check (did you already mention that you did?) is if you still have downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial.

                          I routinely clean out these two directories.
                          Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
                          "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                            @Snowhog
                            I did do an 'aptitude clean', so I believe those are taken care of with that. Actually the 3.5G that du now reports is about the same as when I made the partition backup (which I noted at 3.55G), so it may have simply been those kernel packages.

                            @Qqmike
                            That kernel business might be something to add to your disk full decision tree?
                            Check out my blog for useful scripts and tips... http://igurublog.wordpress.com

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                              Yeah, I do have the apt in the cleaning stuff.
                              sudo apt-get clean
                              sudo apt-get autoclean
                              sudo apt-get autoremove

                              Good idea about the kernels. I'll be darned, I wouldn't have guessed. I was way off in my post above.
                              An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Re: Privacy Cleanup 101

                                OK, done --> in the decision tree for "Disk Full!", (Reply #7), I added package archive cleaning and using your package manager to remove old kernels (linux-image and linux-headers for each).

                                Thanks, guys.

                                An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                                Comment

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