How to install srm (Secure Remove) command in Linux

Srm command is a replacement for rm command. It works under Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes. It removes each specified file by overwriting, renaming, and truncating it before unlinking. This prevents other people from undelete or recovering any information about the file from the command line. Because it does lots of operation on file/directory for secure deletion, it also takes lot of time to remove it.

This article explains the details to install srm command from source.

Step1: Download the srm source file

# wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/srm/1.2.15/srm-1.2.15.tar.gz

Step2: Extract the downloaded file

# tar -xvf srm-1.2.15.tar.gz

Step3: Change the location

# cd srm-1.2.15

Step4: Compile and install using the following commands

# ./configure

# make

# make install

That's all....