verify-upload

verify-upload and hash-service are a set of complementary tools for performing hash verification of FTP uploads without modifying the FTP protocol.

How it works

hash-service is a service that should run on the same server as an FTP data server. The hash-service daemon implements a simple API that can hash files from the local FTP server.

To verify the integrity of an FTP upload, use verify-upload to upload the file to an FTP server, and it will automatically use the hashing service to verify that the file was uploaded successfully.

How to install it

Make sure you have a copy of gcc and make. Any version from the past 20 years should do.

Then run

sudo make install

Or equivalent superuser command for your system.

How to use it

hash-service:

Usage: hash-service [port=8009] [server_ip=127.0.0.1]

verify-upload:

Usage: verify-upload [OPTION...] --server <IP>:[PORT] [FILE...]

Connection Setup:
  -s, --server=IP:PORT          connect to the server given IP and port
  -u, --user=USERNAME           connect to the server with the specified username
                                (default: ftp)
  -p, --password=PASSWORD       connect to the server with the specified password
                                (default: will prompt for password)

Configuration:
  -r, --retries=RETRIES         number of times to retry upload before giving up
                                (default: 5)
  -q, --quiet                   suppress console output and progress bar
  -l, --loud                    print connection status information

Etc:
  -v, --version                 print version information
  -h, --help                    print this help message

vsftpd users

In theory, verify-upload and hash-service should work with any FTP standard compliant FTP server. Unfortunately, I have been unable to verify that such server software exists.

I tested this using vsftpd, so I can reccomend some fixes to make everything work:

verify-upload uses some FTP features that are turned off by defualt in vsftpd. To turn them on, add

pasv_promiscuous=YES

to your vsftpd.conf. Also, make sure PASV mode is enabled.

Additionally, vsftpd has some undocumented behavior that causes hash-service to fail when it tries to use the default IP of 127.0.0.1. In this case you'll need to run it using the server's local area network ip instead of the localhost address.

FAQ

• Why does this exist?

  I use FTP for backups and I get paranoid about upload integrity. This gives me some peace of mind that any backups were uploaded without errors.

• Your code sucks

  That's not a question.

• Why isn't this written in Go?

  I didn't know Go when I wrote this. Now I'm sad.

• Why isn't this written in Rust?

  It's a service. You don't write services in Rust, you write everything that's not a service in Rust!