File level parity checks

[Rich Braun]

Doug <dougsweetser-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> asked:
> Does anyone bother to use parity checks on the file level?  I would
> think someone might have written a script to walk through a directory,
> writing par2 files where needed.  Or is it the case that people just
> use RAID #N?

I have used samhain for as many years as I can remember.  Look at: 
http://www.la-samhna.de/samhain/

This is an intrusion-detection tool that walks whatever directories you
specify, at whatever interval you specify, and notifies you when a file
changes.  By default it will run a full md5sum on each file, storing the
checksum in a master file (either on the same system or in a central
repository depending on how sophisticated you want to be).  There are a number
of options to reduce the overhead of the file-modified checks for files that
change more frequently or for directories of stuff that don't ever change.

-rich