GNU bug report logs - #78857
shred bug

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: KhorneTraditionalist <KhorneTraditionalist <at> proton.me>
To: "bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org" <bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org>
Subject: shred bug
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2025 14:57:26 +0000

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Hi!
I've started shredding a drive /dev/sdc on the latest stable linux mint (debian), then I've connected another drive for work, and the shredding command was cancelled with an error "Error writing at offset [offset]: No such device". Apparently, Mint has automounted and assigned the name /dev/sdc to the new drive and this has confused the shred command and it stopped working. Fortunately, at least, it did not proceed to shred my working drive. Maybe, shred could reserve the drive name for itself until shredding could be completed so that automounting other drive could not lead to such issues?

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Message #8 received at 78857 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: KhorneTraditionalist <KhorneTraditionalist <at> proton.me>
Cc: 78857 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#78857: shred bug
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2025 14:43:16 -0700

On 2025-06-21 07:57, KhorneTraditionalist via GNU coreutils Bug Reports 
wrote:
>   Maybe, shred could reserve the drive name for itself until shredding could be completed so that automounting other drive could not lead to such issues?

shred opens the named file at startup and never uses the file name 
again, so there'd be no point to reserving the drive name (assuming 
something like that could be done).

I expect the problem you observed was due to udev, not to automounting. 
If so, if mounting using a UUID should avoid the problem, whatever it is 
(I can't easily reproduce it).

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