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Verify files against saved checksums

harmlessrsync and backupalle
Adjust the values, the command updates live
user@server
cd /backup/example.com/httpdocs && sha256sum -c --quiet /tmp/example.com.sha256

Reads the checksum list, recalculates every file and compares. Thanks to --quiet, only mismatches marked FAILED and missing files appear, and on success the output is empty. Newly added files are not detected, since they are not in the list.

Note: sha256sum reports missing files as read errors with a summary at the end. --ignore-missing hides them if only modifications matter.

Also searched as

  • check backup for changes
  • sha256sum check list
  • verify files are unchanged
  • compare checksums linux

Related one-liners

All in rsync and backup

Save checksums of all files in a directory

$cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs && find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} + > /tmp/example.com.sha256
cautionrsync and backup

Verify a backup against the original using checksums

$rsync -rcn --itemize-changes /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ /backup/example.com/httpdocs/
harmlessrsync and backup

Create a compressed tar backup with the date in the name

#tar -czf /var/backups/example.com-httpdocs-$(date +%F).tar.gz -C /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs .
cautionrsync and backup

Extract a tar.gz archive without overwriting files

$mkdir -p /tmp/restore && tar -xzf /var/backups/example.com-httpdocs-2026-10-09.tar.gz -C /tmp/restore --skip-old-files
cautionrsync and backup

Incremental backup with hard links using rsync --link-dest

#rsync -a --link-dest=/backup/example.com/aktuell /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ /backup/example.com/$(date +%F)/ && ln -sfn /backup/example.com/$(date +%F) /backup/example.com/aktuell
cautionrsync and backup

List the contents of a tar.gz archive

$tar -tzvf /var/backups/example.com-httpdocs-2026-10-09.tar.gz | head -50
harmlessrsync and backup

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