linscomb@NGP.UTEXAS.EDU.UUCP (08/28/87)
Sorry this response took so long, the mailer bounced it twice for a total of ten days! > From: Walter Reichenbaecher, TH Darmstadt, HRZ > Subject: RE: CHECKSUM Utility > Now , after hearing such bad news from our neighbourhood (Heidelberg, the > city where Roys system is situated is less than 50 miles away from Darmstadt), > we were thinking about some checking mechanism. Like running a job at > midnight to compare the checksums of all important files against a reference > list of checksums... (SYSUAF unfortunatedly cannot be included ..) > Walter Reichenbaecher / Technical University Darmstadt > University Computing Center / Darmstadt, West Germany Don't reinvent the wheel. Included on the 1987 US DECUS VAX SIG tape is a command file written by me to perform nightly comparisons of files. The files are located in [VAX87A.UTEXAS.CHECK]. I use the word comparison above because along with using the CHECKSUM utility to track changes, the command file also records the creation date modification date, and the FILE ID. Walter is correct that comparing a CHECKSUM on some files is worthless, so the command file uses input data files that allow some information on individual files to be excluded. This command file has certainly made me feel more at ease about the integrity of my system files. Please checkout this submission. I am slightly curious to know if anyone is already using this command file. Because this software is available on the DECUS tape, I am not going to make it available via mail/ftp/etc. PS: My only warning is that the first time that CHECK is run, it should be observed closely. The CHECKSUM utility has a bad habit of dumping one error message per record for files that it doesn't like. This can have (and it did bite me) a devastating effect on your disk space. ---------- --Thomas Linscomb aka linscomb@ngp.UTEXAS.EDU aka cctlinscomb@agl.UTEXAS.EDU --Advanced Graphics Lab/Computation Center/The University of Texas --Austin, TX 78712 phone: 512/471-3241 --uucp: ...seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!linscomb linscomb@ut-ngp.UUCP --bitnet: cctj001@utadnx