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How do you know you're not propagating bitrot over time? Feels like a binary here and there may accumulate mismatching checksums over the years from bad hardwar

by 3np 2y ago

How do you know you're not propagating bitrot over time? Feels like a binary here and there may accumulate mismatching checksums over the years from bad hardware or some filesystem error... Not to speak of malware. All it takes is once... Feels a lot safer to do the system- and package installation from scratch and then rsync/dd only /home and /etc.

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
ZFS is how.
- 3np 2y ago
  Over almost 20 years, on Linux? I doubt it. There've been a bunch of integrity-impacting send/receive bugs in zfs over the years.
ritcgab 2y ago
The base system and packages are usually smaller than home, so the possibility of a bitrot is actually lower. Package files' integrity can also be automatically checked by some tools. In addition, they are much easier to reproduce, as you said, one can always just reinstall the system and download all packages again. Your home and /etc actually matter more.
pabs3 2y ago
On Debian at least you can check for modified, removed or added files using cruft-ng.