Auto add date and time to filename of nwipe.log file for generating uniquely named log files

[abacefbeca]

I use Parted Magic to wipe a lot of drives. I prefer to use the secure erase method with verification but drives often misbehave or might not support secure erase so I often use nwipe in Parted Magic to wipe drives. I need a log that contains the model, serial, wipe method, and verification results. Nwipe.log contains all of that. I generate a lot of nwipe.log files that I need to save and to ensure I don't overwrite previously created logs I have to manually add the date to the filename to create a unique file name. I tried ShredOS and noticed it is running nwipe but it will generate a log file with a date and time code in the filename, creating a unique log filename for each time nwipe is ran. Is there a way to do this with nwipe in Parted Magic? Perhaps the Parted Magic forums is the place to ask this but I've had trouble getting in to there. It is convenient for me to just switch programs in Parted Magic rather than shutting down the computer and rebooting from another USB drive to run ShredOS.

[PartialVolume]

@abacefbeca

So to clarify, you would like a time stamped nwipe log file produced by parted magic in nwipe?

ShredOS produces a time stamped file because the time stamped filename is passed to nwipe, nwipe then uses that filename to create the log. The problem with parted magics way of nwipe log creation is they will also be deciding what the log file is called, i.e a filename without a time stamp, so even if I changed nwipe to automatically create a time stamped file when no log file name was specified (which is a good idea) it wouldn't fix the problem in parted magic unless they changed the way they call nwipe.

So yes, I can change nwipe to produce a time stamped log file if no log file is specified but I also have to retain the feature where the user can specify the filename to be used for backward compatibility. The point is, me changing nwipe might not fix this issue in parted magic due to the nwipe options parted magic uses.

I will add this change to nwipe but you may still need the parted magic guys to change the nwipe options for --logfile= that they currently use.

I just wondered why you use the logfile .txt file but not the PDF certificate?

[PartialVolume]

@abacefbeca I removed those prior comments from a third party @ghost where they linked to some DLLs as they appeared to be from a compromised account.

[abacefbeca]

@PartialVolume
Yes, a time stamped nwipe log file would be nice. I understand the file does have a date and time associated with it in the filesystem but it would be nice if the timestamp were in the file name.

I might be able to launch nwipe in Parted Magic from a Terminal window instead of the buttons under the Erase Disk GUI menu and use a command that will put a timestamp in the log file name.

I noticed the PDF certificates that appeared on the desktop in Parted Magic after wiping a batch of drives. Actually, I think the serials were in the file names resulting in unique file names. Mainly I just want unique file names for convenience so I don't have to name them myself. Adding a time stamp to the file name is just one way to do that. I just realized that the PDFs would do that too.

When I opened the PDFs there were no text in them. I'm not sure if that is because the PDF viewing program in Parted Magic had an issue or the files contained no text for some reason. Maybe I neglected to configure some settings for the PDFs? I am using Parted Magic 2024_09_13 which, if I remember correctly, includes nwipe 0.36. Since the PDFs looked mysteriously blank I just turned off PDF generation and decided to rely on the nwipe.log file.

[abacefbeca]

@PartialVolume

OK I just generated a test PDF certificate and opened it in X PDF, the PDF viewer included with Parted Magic. X PDF doesn't show the text for some reason. I opened the PDF in Firefox and the text is visible.

[PartialVolume]

I think the problem with the text missing is to do with xpdf configuration under parted magic. xpdf on Ubuntu 22.04 works ok. Either you are missing fonts or your substitution fonts are not setup correctly in /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc

The nwipe pdfs don't include embedded fonts so if the courier, helvetica, helvetica-bold and Times New Roman fonts don't exist on the system, the display program should substitute an alternative font.

On KDE using the pdf viewer Okular, you can check the properties and fonts of the PDF document

The nwipe pdfs use the fonts, courier, Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold and Times New Roman and because these fonts don't exist on the system they are substituted with various Nimbus fonts.

xpdf has a config file where this substitution is configured, usually located in /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc (global) or if it exists ~/.xpdfrc

Here's the standard /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc config from Ubuntu 22.04.

#========================================================================
#
# System-wide xpdfrc file
#
# Xpdf looks for a config file in the following two places:
# 1. ~/.xpdfrc
# 2. /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc
#
# Note that if ~/.xpdfrc exists, Xpdf will NOT read the system
# configuration file /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc. You may wish to include it
# from your ~/.xpdfrc using:
#    include /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc
# and then add additional settings.
#
# For complete details on config file syntax and available options,
# please see the xpdfrc(5) man page.
#
# https://www.xpdfreader.com/
#
#========================================================================

#----- display fonts

# These map a PDF font to a font for display or PostScript output.

#fontFile Ryumin-Light          /usr/share/fonts/truetype/misaki/misaki_mincho.ttf
#fontFile Ryumin-Light-H        /usr/share/fonts/truetype/misaki/misaki_mincho.ttf
#fontFile Ryumin-Light-Identity-H       /usr/share/fonts/truetype/misaki/misaki_mincho.ttf
#fontFile FutoMinA101-Bold-Identity-H   /usr/share/fonts/truetype/misaki/misaki_mincho.ttf

#----- PostScript output control

# Set the default PostScript file or command.

psFile                  "|lpr"

# Set the default PostScript paper size -- this can be letter, legal,
# A4, or A3.  You can also specify a paper size as width and height
# (in points). Xpdf uses the paper size in /etc/papersize by default.

#psPaperSize            letter

#----- text output control

# Choose a text encoding for copy-and-paste output.  The Latin1,
# ASCII7, and UTF-8 encodings are built into Xpdf.

#textEncoding           UTF-8

#----- misc settings

# Set the command used to run a web browser when a URL hyperlink is
# clicked.

urlCommand      "sensible-browser '%s'"

# Unbind arrow keys so we can change fullscreen behavior
unbind down any
unbind right any
unbind up any
unbind left any

# Rebind arrow keys to defaults in the windowed context
bind down window scrollDown(16)
bind right window scrollRight(16)
bind up window scrollUp(16)
bind left window scrollLeft(16)

# Bind arrow keys to next/prev page actions in the fullscreen context
bind down fullScreen nextPage
bind right fullScreen nextPage
bind up fullScreen prevPage
bind left fullScreen prevPage

[PartialVolume]

@abacefbeca You may want to report xpdf not showing text as a font substitution issue over at parted magic.

[abacefbeca]

@PartialVolume

Thank you for investigating that so thoroughly!