cksum entire dir??

[Gary Kline]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:55:57AM -0700, Waitman Gobble wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 07:31:45AM +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> > > On 12/09/2012 00:14, Polytropon wrote:
> > > >     % cksum <directory>
> > > >
> > > > and could obtain a checksum - so it _seems_ to work.
> > > > After alteration of one file within the hierarchy a
> > > > different result was printed.
> > >
> > > That will give you a checksum on the directory inode -- file names and
> > > associated metadata only, not file content.  In theory you could edit a
> > > file without modifying any of the timestamps, and that wouldn't result
> > > in any change to the directory checksum.  Also, modifying things a few
> > > layers down the filesystem hierarchy won't have any effect either.
> > >
> > > Generally I find the best test for differences between old and new
> > > copies of a filesystem is 'rsync -avx -n ...'
> > >
> > > Also, sum and cksum have way too small a key size for this to be
> > > reliable, since you can't tell a true result from a hash collision.  Use
> > > md5 or sha1 or sha256 for best results.
> > >
> >
> >         So this sha256 is *real*??  I have no md5 on my "fedora"
> >         that is on my desktop and m having trouble getting used to.
> >         but the gentleman who recommened cpio was right on the money.
> >
> 
> 
> 
> are you sure it's not 'md5sum' ? ... that seems to be on all my GNU/Linux
> machines.
> 
> Waitman Gobble
> San Jose California USA
> 

	yup, you be right.  altho we have no md5 [[does FBSD?]], fedora 
	does have md5sum.  makes me wonder why this flavor didnt do at least a
	symlink.   oh well.    

	thankee much.

	[[ 
	    axeing to save BW
	]]


> 
> > > Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.
> > > PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "
> > freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
> >