Disk Hunter

An all-in-one, web utility designed for testing, managing, wiping, and formatting physical storage drives.

Repository: Mat-Ice-QC/Disk-Hunter

Overview

Disk Hunter provides a sleek, modern glassmorphic dashboard interface for administrative disk operations. It leverages a high-performance Python FastAPI backend, isolating root-level, privileged commands inside ephemeral Docker containers to safeguard host system integrity.

Key Features

• Interactive Dashboard - Instantly view connected drives, partition structures, device health, and raw hardware specs in a unified grid.
• Secure Wiping (Shredder) - Erase disk data using industry-standard wiping methods (via nwipe and hdparm). Streams real-time terminal output to the browser and automatically generates a PDF Certificate of Erasure upon completion.
• Speed Benchmarks - Run sequential read/write speed tests (using fio benchmarks) directly from the UI.
• S.M.A.R.T. Diagnostics - Run and monitor short/extended self-tests, check real-time progress metrics, and view structured attribute health tables.
• Visual Partition Editor - Create, delete, and format partitions (ext3, ext4, fat32, ntfs) with an intuitive click-and-drag block interface powered by parted.
• OS Image Flashing - Safely write downloaded .iso or .img OS images directly to targeted devices.

System Architecture

Disk Hunter is built with a decoupled microservice layout to ensure worker isolation and concurrency safety.

Component	Role	Communicates With
Frontend UI (nginx:alpine)	Serves the glassmorphic web interface	Polls status and invokes the Main API
Main API (Python FastAPI)	Orchestration hub	Spawns/monitors ephemeral worker containers; delegates SMART queries
SMART Provider (Python FastAPI microservice)	Executes smartctl as a non-root proxy	Runs privileged smartctl commands against /dev/*
Ephemeral Worker Containers	Sandboxed execution environment	Runs privileged utilities: nvme-cli, nwipe, hdparm, parted, dd, fio

The application is composed of three main components:

1. Frontend (disk-hunter-ui) - A responsive, glassmorphic UI built in vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, served via Nginx.
2. Main API (disk-hunter-api) - The orchestration hub. Spawns, monitors, and terminates ephemeral Docker worker containers via async subprocess calls.
3. SMART Provider (disk-hunter-smart-provider) - A lightweight FastAPI microservice running in privileged mode, responsible for executing smartctl commands.

Requirements

• Docker (required to run the ephemeral worker containers for privileged disk operations)
• A Linux host with direct physical access to the target drives
• A modern web browser to access the dashboard

Notes

• Privileged disk operations (wiping, firmware updates, etc.) are sandboxed inside ephemeral Docker containers, keeping the host system protected.
• For network-accessible deployments, restrict access to trusted clients using firewall rules or a VPN, as the interface provides low-level disk access.
• The secure wipe feature automatically produces a PDF Certificate of Erasure upon completion, which can be useful for compliance or asset disposal records.