A blog about Fixity v. Checksum

[Jenny Mitcham]

Hi,

I've been testing Fixity recently and thinking about whether I should use it instead of my existing fixity checking procedures.

It has been a really interesting process and I've blogged some of my thoughts. I thought you might be interested in it: http://digital-archiving.blogspot.com/2018/07/checksum-or-fixity-which-tool-is-for-me.html

In summary, despite finding lots to like about Fixity, I decided to stick with my existing Checksum tool for time being. I have some feedback in the blog and hope this is of use and can perhaps help feed into future development?

Please do add comments to the blog post if I have misunderstood Fixity or if there are workarounds to some of the issues I encountered.

All the best,

Jen

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Jenny Mitcham
Digital Archivist
Borthwick Institute for Archives

University of York
Heslington
York
YO10 5DD

Telephone: 01904 321170

Borthwick Institute website: http://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/
Digital archiving blog: http://digital-archiving.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter: @Jenny_Mitcham

Skype: jenny_mitcham

[Pamela Vizner]

Hi Jenny!

Thank you so much for such a thorough review of our tool Fixity. We truly appreciate users’ feedback as it allows us to build better tools for the community. We have taken notes of the bugs and feature requests you have mentioned and will incorporate these into ongoing development efforts for Fixity. Throughout your comments there are two primary points that emerge:

1. The need to provide users with feedback on progress and timing. We hear that and agree that this will be a useful addition in the future.

2. The length of time it takes to perform scans. This is something we’re looking into and we believe that the lack of speed may be specific to the Windows version of the application. Regardless, we will continue to look into this and see what’s going on there.

Setting those issues aside there are a few comments that we wanted to offer which may serve as helpful tips and make the Fixity experience easier and more understandable. The headings below correspond with the headings in your blog.

Scheduling

Regardless of speed, the issues raised under this section of your blog can be tricky with large amounts of data, especially if the data being scanned is on a network drive. We have a couple of thoughts to share:

1. It may be very well worthwhile to dedicate a machine to this task because it is rather intensive.

2. Launching Fixity as an admin when setting up schedules will create the tasks within Windows Task Scheduler such that they will be able to run when you are logged off. This allows you to log off and still have your scheduled scans run at night or over the weekend when you’re not there.

Managing Projects

Regarding the switching of checksum algorithms we use an approach which requires that all files be scanned and validated before the checksum algorithm change is implemented. If we didn’t do this there would be a loophole in the logic where a change in algorithm could result in incomplete reporting and a failure to identify changes, additions, deletions, moves, and file renames. It is time intensive but the diligent approach lives up to the application’s charge of making sure you know what’s going on with your files. especially at points where things are liable to slip through the cracks. We hope that changing algorithms is an infrequent event. However when it is done we believe that it’s significant enough to require the thorough and careful process we have designed for Fixity.

Where are the checksums stored?

The latest version of Fixity (v1.2) allows you to change the location of where your reports are stored as you like.

How to keep checksums up to date

Many of the workflows that use Fixity have checksums prior to arriving at the archive. For instance, when Exactly and Fixity are used in tandem, Exactly creates checksums at the point of bagging files. At the point of receipt the bag can be validated, incorporating file attendance and checksum all file checksums verified. Upon deposit to the archive, there may a period of time before Fixity is run and the new files are added into the Fixity database. In these instances, the checksum from Exactly can serve as the interim checksum of record until Fixity is run. When Fixity is run the two checksums (one in Exactly and one in Fixity) can be compared to confirm that they match and the checksum of record can now live in Fixity. Having said all of this, it would be good to hear what your ideal scenario would be so that we can think about accommodating additional workflows.

Thanks again, and please keep your comments coming!

Best,

Pamela

(On behalf of Fixity Team)

[Jenny Mitcham]

Thanks so much for your reply - and also for commenting directly on the blog. 

Pleased to hear that the feedback is useful.

Keep up the good work!

Jen

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