summain(1) gather file checksums and metadata

SYNOPSIS

summain [-c=CHECKSUM] [--checksum=CHECKSUM] [--config=FILE] [--dump-config] [--dump-memory-profile=METHOD] [--dump-setting-names] [--exclude=FIELD] [--generate-manpage=TEMPLATE] [-h] [--help] [--help-all] [--list-config-files] [--log=FILE] [--log-keep=N] [--log-level=LEVEL] [--log-max=SIZE] [--log-mode=MODE] [-m] [--mangle-paths] [--memory-dump-interval=SECONDS] [--no-default-configs] [--no-mangle-paths] [--no-relative-paths] [--output=FILE] [-f=OUTPUT-FORMAT] [--output-format=OUTPUT-FORMAT] [-r] [--relative-paths] [--secret=SECRET] [--version] [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

summain gathers metadata about files, and computes their checksums. It is intended to create a manifest of the files. The manifest can be used to see if something has changed: a new manifest can be created and compared with the old one with diff(1).

The manifest looks like this:

Name: foo/bar/foobar
SHA1: 1234123413241324
Mtime: 2010-01-01 02:08:00.127651 +0000
Mode: 1755

The filename is URL-encoded to ensure it is purely ASCII. Mode is in octal.

Only some inode fields are included. It does not make sense to compare, for example, the access time, so that is not included.

Time stamps are given using microsecond precision, for the benefit of those filesystems that can support precise timestamps. (Should be nanosecond, but Python return timestamps as floating point, and nanosecond precision is too much for the floating point type.)

The inode and device number fields will not be reported accurately. Instead, they are normalized so that manifests are useful after the files have been restored from backups. Accurate numbers would mean everything seems to have changed. Normalized means that there will be no differences. The numbers are reported so that hard links can be checked.

Directories named on the command line will be recursed automatically.

OPTIONS

-c, --checksum=CHECKSUM
which checksums to compute: MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512; use once per checksum type (default is SHA1)
--exclude=FIELD
do not output or compute FIELD
--generate-manpage=TEMPLATE
SUPPRESSHELP
-h, --help
show this help message and exit
-m, --mangle-paths
mangle (obfuscate) paths
--no-mangle-paths

--no-relative-paths

--output=FILE
write output to FILE, instead of standard output
-f, --output-format=OUTPUT-FORMAT
choose output format (rfc822, csv, json)
-r, --relative-paths
print paths relative to arguments
--secret=SECRET
use SECRET to make mangled paths unguessable
--version
show program's version number and exit

Configuration files and settings

--config=FILE
add FILE to config files
--dump-config
write out the entire current configuration
--dump-setting-names
SUPPRESSHELP
--help-all
show all options
--list-config-files
SUPPRESSHELP
--no-default-configs
clear list of configuration files to read

Logging

--log=FILE
write log entries to FILE (default is to not write log files at all); use "syslog" to log to system log, or "none" to disable logging
--log-keep=N
keep last N logs (10)
--log-level=LEVEL
log at LEVEL, one of debug, info, warning, error, critical, fatal (default: debug)
--log-max=SIZE
rotate logs larger than SIZE, zero for never (default: 0)
--log-mode=MODE
set permissions of new log files to MODE (octal; default 0600)

Peformance

--dump-memory-profile=METHOD
make memory profiling dumps using METHOD, which is one of: none, simple, or meliae (default: simple)
--memory-dump-interval=SECONDS
make memory profiling dumps at least SECONDS apart

EXAMPLE

To make a complete manifest of a directory tree so that you can later verify that nothing at all has changed:

summain foo > foo.summain

To verify that nothing has changed:

summain foo > foo.summain-2 diff -u foo.summain foo.summain-2