KeCS

Introduction

KeCS is a tool for generating a checksum set from the contents of a directory, which can then be used to verify those files or compared with a different checksum set. A checksum set is stored as a JSON file containing a list of files and their corresponding checksums, as well as other necessary metadata.

Comparing checksum sets can be used as a way to determine whether two copies of the same content are identical without requiring both to be accessible from the same computer.

Supported hashing algorithms:

• BLAKE2b-512 (blake2b512)
• BLAKE2s-256 (blake2s256)
• BLAKE3 (blake3)
• CRC32 (crc32)
• MD5 (md5)
• SHA1 (sha1)
• SHA256 (sha256, the default if not specified)
• SHA3-256 (sha3_256)

Compiling

1. Install Rust using the instructions here or your distro's package manager.
2. Clone this repository and execute the following command in it:

$ cargo build --release

Voila! You should now have a usable executable in the target/release subdirectory.

Generating a checksum set

Example: Generating a checksum set using the blake3 hashing algorithm:

$ kecs generate <path/to/content> -t blake3

Verifying using a checksum set

$ kecs verify <path/to/file.kecs.json>

Comparing two checksum sets

$ kecs diff <path/to/file1.kecs.json> <path/to/file2.kecs.json>