Hi...
Anyone know of a freeware utility that would log filenames? Should support...
complete hard drive including hidden and system files
pointing at and logging only specific directories/filenames
wildcard matching
set to automatically run on a user set schedule
comparing of recent log to actual disk contents
flagging changes in filenames either new log to old or new log to actual
content
flagging file size changes
other neat features I haven't thoght of
A DOS app would be fine.
A freeware filemanager would be ok, if it supported most of these features, but
I'd perfer a stand-alone utility that can be set to auto mode.
I've listed ten programs that might meet your needs. You might start
by looking at GFI LANguard System Integrity Monitor (SIM). It does
almost everything you mentioned provided you don't need to keep and
compare multiple catalogs over time. (It may even do that.)
Registration required but free for commercial use (IIRC). Win2k/XP.
http://www.gfi.com/LANguard/
"GFI LANguard S.I.M. scans your system for important system files,
computes an MD 5 checksum ... [and stores] this in a database. At
scheduled intervals, GFI LANguard S.I.M. scans the list of monitored
files, computes another MD 5 checksum and tests the current value
against the stored value .... If it detects a change, it notifies the
system administrator via email, and logs the occurrence in the [SIM]
security event log. ... [It] allows you to create multiple scan jobs,
so that you can monitor different types of files at different
intervals." While intended to be run fairly frequently for a
relatively small subset of critical files (e.g., system, web site,
database), you can specify entire drives.
This is just one example of an intrusion detection system (IDS), file
integrity monitor/tool/utility/checker, or checksum tool/utility.
Integrity checkers are (almost) all based on a cryptographic hash,
message digest, or checksum algorithm that is computed once as a
baseline and then compared with subsequent computations. Common
algorithms include MD5, SHA-1, CRC16, and CRC32, among a host of
others.
You will also see frequent references to simple file verification
(SFV). Some tools create SFV files for each tested file or one
collective SFV file per directory for subsequent comparison. MD5sum
is an equivalent.
I've listed several additional integrity tools at the bottom of this
post that may or may not be applicable to your particular situation
just to get you started. I've used GFI's LANguard SIM for a few
months, but only one or two of the others briefly.
I also recently saw a similar program that just used the file change
date. The name and location escape me, but I might have seen it in
the context of identifying files for backup. The overhead is
obviously much less but not reliable for security.
IIRC, there is a good Russian antivirus program that uses the same
principal. It is similar to the early PC antivirus programs before
they became signature based. There were very few limitations on its
use although that was not immediately obvious from the site.
Once you have looked through several of these and briefly tried one or
two, you might get better advice in a security forum -- if that is
your intended purpose.
Depending upon your specific needs, you may wind up combining one of
these tools with your own scripts and perhaps some other utilities,
such as a directory lister and a backup program. Pricelessware.org
has several recommendations for those.
Some of the following can be used for commercial purposes, others are
personal use only.
Advanced CheckSum Verifier
http://www.irnis.net/soft/acsv/
and
eXpress CheckSum Calculator - XCSV
http://www.irnis.net/soft/xcsv/
AFICK (another file integrity checker)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/afick
dsSFV (and others)
http://freezip.cjb.net/freeware/
Easy Integrity Checker
http://www.devstar-soft.com/products/eic/index.htm
(my link is dead, but Google shows many download and other DevStar
sites)
FileCheckMD5
http://www.brandonstaggs.com/filecheckmd5.html/
fsum
http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/
md5deep
http://md5deep.sourceforge.net/
MD5summer
http://www.md5summer.org/
SpeedySFV
http://tomorroware.blix.com/SpeedySFV/
Good luck,
BillR
