OEM installer script, multi-use?

[Scott Henson]

Anthony Yarusso wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Phillip Lougher wrote:
>> Anthony Yarusso wrote:
>>
>>> I was wondering if someone who helped develop the OEM install
>>> option (or is familiar with it) knows whether it can be re-used.
>>> ie, if you're leasing machines, can you send it out to a client,
>>> get it back after a while and just run the script again to remove
>>> the old user and set it up for the next one to put in their
>>> preferences?
>> Personally I would consider this too much of a security risk,
>> personal or business sensitive data doesn't necessarily get removed
>> once files are deleted.  I would wipe or shred (both Linux
>> commands) the disk before reuse.
>>
>> Phillip
>>
>>
>>
> Would it be possible to get shred options included in the script for
> this sort of use?

I think using wipe or shred on a drive would probably be a little over
kill.  dd zeros to the drive and then format would likely be enough to
make the data prohibitively expensive to recover.  This is of course
depending on the data that was on the drive to begin with.  For
instance, I remember reading somewhere that the CIA destroys their hard
drives in acid baths.  The important part is to make recovery more
expensive than the data is worth.

As for the original question, I would say that it is going to be more
trouble than its worth.  I would much rather create a drive image with
dd and then dd it back to the drive after every return.  This would
solve the above problem and you could likely create a network boot setup
that did it automatically with a little work.  Aka you would just plug
the returning machine into a specialized network that would do all the
needed stuff automatically.

Btw, I'm not an ubuntu developer and I didn't help develop the oem
installer, but I have had my head in the installer for other purposes.
Someone may know a way of doing what you want, but I don't think it
would be worth it either way.