AIDE(1)

📦
version 0.19.3 · 10 versions
, in nixos 26.05, ubuntu stonking

🎀 AIDE(1) 🎀

okay so before we even start: this is the manual for AIDE, a User Command, and the full name of the thing is the Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment. hi bestie, welcome to the group chat 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

aide — it's literally the Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment. that's the whole name, slay 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

aide [parameters] command

yes bestie, parameters first, then the command. order matters, it's giving main character energy 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

AIDE is an intrusion detection system for checking the integrity of files. that's it, that's the vibe check. it looks at your files and goes "hmm, were you always like this?" 🧐

👑 COMMANDS 👑

  • --check, -C — checks the database for inconsistencies. 🕵️ you must have an initialized database to do this. this is also the default command, so if you run aide with no command at all, it does a check. periodt.
  • --init, -i — initialize the database. 💖 you must initialize a database and move it to the appropriate place (see the database_in config option) before you can use the --check command. no skipping steps bestie.
  • --dry-init, -n — added in AIDE v0.17. Traverse the file system, match each file against the rule tree and report to stdout. 👀

Neither reports nor the database are written in this mode.

To change the log level in this mode please use the --log-level command line parameter.

In this mode aide exits with status 0.

  • --update, -u — checks the database and updates the database non-interactively. the input and output databases must be different 🚨 (yes, genuinely, don't try it)
  • --compare, -E — compares two databases. they must be defined in the config file with database=<url> and database_new=<url>.
  • --list — added in AIDE v0.19. List the entries of the database in human readable format (analogous to the detailed report output of new files). note that the checksums are base16 encoded. 🍓
  • --config-check, -D — stops after reading in the configuration file. any errors will be reported. to change the log level in this mode please use the --log-level command line parameter.
  • --path-check=file_type[=file_system_type]:path, -p — and also file_type[=file_system_type]:path — added in AIDE v0.17: Read configuration and match provided file_type, optionally file system type (added in AIDE v0.19, Linux only) and path against rule tree.

The path is independent of what is in the actual file system and needs to be absolute. See RESTRICTED RULES section in aide.conf(5) for supported file types and file system types.

Please note that the specified file system type is only applied to the file and not to the parent directories of the path. If a restricted rule cannot be matched against a parent directory due to the missing file system type aide raises a warning. ⚠️

To change the log level in this mode please use the --log-level command line parameter.

In this mode aide exits with status 0 if the file would be added to the tree, 1 if not and 2 if the file does not match the specified limit.

💅 PARAMETERS 💅

  • --config=configfile, -c configfile — configuration is read from file configfile (see --version output for default value). Use '-' for stdin. 🫶
  • --limit=REGEX, -l REGEX — added in AIDE v0.16. Limit command to entries matching REGEX. Note that the REGEX only matches at the first position.
Example Only check and update the database entries matching /etc (i.e. the /etc directory) while leaving all other entries unchecked and unchanged:
aide --update --limit /etc
  • --before="configparameters", -B "configparameters" — these configparameters are handled before the reading of the configuration file. See aide.conf(5) for more details on what to put here.
  • --after="configparameters", -A "configparameters" — these configparameters are handled after the reading of the configuration file. See aide.conf(5) for more details on what to put here.
  • --log-level=log_level, -Llog_level — added in AIDE v0.17. The log level to use (see aide.conf(5) for available log levels and more details). This overwrites the log_level value set in any configuration file. 🌈
  • --verbose=verbosity_level, -Vverbosity_level — REMOVED in AIDE v0.17. Removed, use log_level and report_level config options instead (see aide.conf(5) for details). 💀 rip bozo
  • --report=reporter, -r reporter — REMOVED in AIDE v0.17. Removed, use report_url config option instead (see aide.conf(5) for details). 💀
  • --workers=WORKERS, -W WORKERS — added in AIDE v0.18. Specifies the number of workers (see aide.conf(5) for details). This overwrites the num_workers value set in any configuration file. 🔥
  • --no-progress — added in AIDE v0.19. Turn progress off explicitly. By default progress is shown if standard error is connected to a terminal.
  • --no-color — added in AIDE v0.19. Turn colored log output off explicitly. By default colored log output is enabled if standard error is connected to a terminal. 🎨
  • --version, -v — print version information and exit. ⭐
  • --help, -h — prints out the standard help message. 🙈

🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

Normally, the exit status is 0 if no errors occurred. Except when the --check, --compare or --update command was requested, in which case the exit status is defined as:

1 * (new files reported?)     +

2 * (removed files reported?) +

4 * (changed files reported?)

Since those three cases can occur together, the respective error codes are added. For example, if there are new files and removed files reported, the exit status will be 1 + 2 = 3. math is mathing ✨

Additionally, the following exit codes are defined for generic error conditions:

  • 14 Writing error
  • 15 Invalid argument error
  • 16 Unimplemented function error
  • 17 Configuration error
  • 18 IO error
  • 19 Version mismatch error
  • 20 EXEC error
  • 21 File lock error
  • 22 Memory allocation error
  • 23 Thread error
  • 24 Database error
  • 25 received SIGINT, SIGTERM or SIGHUP

🌈 SIGNAL HANDLING 🌈

  • SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGHUP

Remove an incompletely written database (only if database file was created by aide) and exit (code 25). 😭 clean up after yourself bestie

  • SIGUSR1

Toggle the log_level between current and debug level.

SIGUSR1 is only handled after config parsing.

  • SIGWINCH

Resize the progress bar (if enabled). 📏

🧚 NOTES 🧚

💜 Checksum encoding

The checksums in the database and in the output are by default base64 encoded (see also report_base16 option). To decode them you can use the following shell command:

echo <encoded_checksum> | base64 -d | hexdump -v -e '32/1 "%02x" "\n"'

💜 Control characters

Control characters (00-31 and 127) are always escaped in log and plain report output. They are escaped by a literal backslash (\) followed by exactly 3 digits representing the character in octal notation (e.g. a newline is output as "\012"). A literal backslash is not escaped unless it is followed by 3 digits (0-9), in this case the literal backslash is escaped as "\134". Reports in JSON format are escaped according to the JSON specs (e.g. a newline is output as "\b" or an escape (ESC) is output as "\u001b"). no cap, that's really how it goes down 🍓

🎀 FILES 🎀

See --version output for the default config file and the default database_in and database_out config values.

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

aide.conf(5)

💀 BUGS 💀

There are probably bugs in this release. Please report them at https://github.com/aide/aide/issues . ngl bestie, it's a whole thing, but they're nice about it 🫶

🙈 DISCLAIMER 🙈

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. No animals were harmed while making this webpage or this piece of software. Although some pizza delivery guy's feelings were hurt. 😭🍕

and that's the whole page, bestie! this gorgeous little manual is from aide v0.19.3, dated 2026-01-31. go forth and check your file integrity, you absolute icon 💅✨

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