Argus - Directory Checksum/Monitoring Tool

Argus is a simple file integrity checker built in Rust. It recursively scans a given directory, calculates the SHA-256 checksum for each file, and stores the results in a file. It supports output in NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON) format.

Features

• Recursively scan a directory and its subdirectories.
• Calculate the SHA-256 checksum of each file.
• Output results in NDJSON format for easy processing.
• Supports command-line arguments for custom input and output paths.
• Directory monitoring mode

Coming soon:

• Checking against old checksums for changes (WIP)
• Automation?

Requirements

• Rust 1.60 or higher.
• cargo (comes with Rust).

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/your-username/argus.git
cd argus

2. Build the project:

To compile the project in release mode (for an optimized executable):

cargo build --release

3. Run the Standalone Executable:

Once built, the standalone executable can be found in the target/release/ directory.

To scan a directory and save the integrity checksums to an output file, run:

./target/release/argus --directory /path/to/dir --output output.ndjson

Replace /path/to/dir with the directory you want to scan and output.ndjson with the desired output file name.

If you want to use the default directory (current working directory) and the default output file (./file_integrity.ndjson), simply run:

./target/release/argus

Command-Line Arguments

• --monitor, -m: Sets monitoring mode on
• --directory, -d: The directory to scan or monitor (defaults to the current directory if not specified).
• --output, -o: The output file to save the checksums (checksum mode, defaults to file_integrity.ndjson).
• --help, -h: Displays the help message.
• --version, -V: Display the program's version.

Example Usage

# UNIX format
./argus --directory ./test_dir --output checksums.ndjson

This will scan the test_directory folder and save the checksums in checksums.ndjson. Checksum file MUST have .ndjson extension, or the program will not function.

# Windows format
argus.exe -m -d C:\

This will start monitoring the C:\ drive for any changes, reporting all to console.

File Format

The output file for checksums is in NDJSON format, which stores each file's checksum as a separate JSON object on a new line: (Absolute path is used, including character limit bypass prefix if ran on Windows)

{"path": "/path/to/file1", "checksum": "abc123..."}
{"path": "/path/to/file2", "checksum": "def456..."}

Development

If you'd like to contribute to this project, just make a pull request with information about your changes/improvements :)

License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3 License. See the LICENSE file for details.

---

Made with ❤️ in Rust.