How To Install zerofree on CentOS 8

zerofree is Utility to force unused ext2/3/4 inodes and blocks to zero

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install zerofree on CentOS 8.

What is zerofree

zerofree is a utility to set unused filesystem inodes and blocks of an ext2/3/4 filesystem to zero. This can improve the compressibility and privacy of an ext2/3/4 filesystem. This tool was inspired by the ext2fs privacy (i.e. secure deletion) patch described in a Linux kernel mailing list thread. WARNING read-only. The tool tries to check this before running, but you should be careful.

We can use yum or dnf to install zerofree on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install zerofree.

Install zerofree on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install zerofree using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install zerofree

Install zerofree on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install zerofree using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install zerofree

How To Uninstall zerofree on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the zerofree package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove zerofree

zerofree Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/4c
/usr/lib/.build-id/4c/409f1baacbf0cdefb7c6fc3e49a492bd29323b
/usr/lib/.build-id/5f
/usr/lib/.build-id/5f/6438b385014190cb3b4750d2ccb177ef47e45a
/usr/sbin/sparsify
/usr/sbin/zerofree
/usr/share/doc/zerofree
/usr/share/doc/zerofree/index.html
/usr/share/licenses/zerofree
/usr/share/licenses/zerofree/COPYING
/usr/share/man/man8/zerofree.8.gz

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install zerofree on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.