Volume Wiping

There are several ways to wipe a block storage device. The traditional way is to set the lvm_type to thin, and then use the volume_clear parameter if using the LVM backend. Alternatively, if the volume encryption feature is used, then volume wiping is not necessary if the volume encryption key is deleted. See the OpenStack Configuration Reference doc in the Volume Encryption section for set up details and also the Castellan usage document for key deletion.

Note

In older OpenStack releases, lvm_type=default was used to signify a wipe. While this method still works, lvm_type=default is not recommended for setting secure delete.

The volume_clear parameter can be set to zero. The zero argument will write a single pass of zeroes to the device.

For more information about the lvm_type parameter, see sections LVM and Oversubscription in thin provisioning of the cinder project documentation.

For more information about the volume_clear parameter, see section Cinder Configuration Options of the cinder project documentation.