Does Relax-and-Recover on Rocky Linux verify restored data integrity, or is a separate checksum pass required?

Direct answer

No. A successful rear recover on Rocky Linux does not perform a built-in byte-for-byte comparison of restored file contents against original checksums. The workflow recreates partition tables, filesystems, bootloader configuration, and then extracts the backup archive. Its completion message indicates that structural restoration and archive extraction finished without fatal errors, not that every file matches the pre-backup state.

What ReaR actually verifies

Relax-and-Recover (ReaR) is a disaster-recovery orchestrator, not a content-verification engine. It prepares rescue media, rebuilds the disk layout, and delegates data restoration to an external backup program such as tar or BorgBackup. Because ReaR does not maintain a manifest of original file checksums, it cannot detect silent corruption introduced by storage media, interrupted transfers, or archive damage unless the underlying backup tool itself reports a fatal error during extraction.

Where to inject an independent integrity check

The safest injection point is after rear recover completes and the restored system has rebooted, but before you declare the recovery successful. Attempting to interpose a checksum pass during the live recovery environment is disruptive and unnecessary unless the configured backup tool offers native archive verification (for example, Borg's repository check). For most workflows, a post-boot validation pass is the correct boundary.

Configuration parameters that matter

ReaR does not expose a universal "verify restored data" flag. The setting that governs behavior is BACKUP in /etc/rear/local.conf (or /etc/rear/site.conf). The available verification capabilities depend entirely on the external tool named there:

• tar-based backups: No automatic content checksumming during extraction. A separate manifest comparison is required.
• BorgBackup: Supports repository-level integrity checks, but ReaR does not invoke them by default during recovery.

Practical verification steps

1. Identify the configured backend:
   grep -E '^BACKUP=' /etc/rear/local.conf
2. For tar or similar archive tools, generate a pre-backup manifest of critical paths, then after reboot run a scoped check:
   sha256sum -c /root/manifest.sha256
3. For Borg repositories, run borg check against the archive before starting recovery, and optionally verify extracted critical files after reboot.
4. Always validate high-value targets first: /etc, /boot, and application data directories.

Version assumptions and uncertainty

Across Rocky Linux 8, 9, and 10, the core ReaR behavior described above is consistent; differences appear in package versions and available backup backends, not in the presence of a native content-verification stage. Because exact tool capabilities can vary by release, treat any tool-specific verification flag as something to confirm against the installed version's documentation.

One detail that changes the recommendation

If the BACKUP method is not already known, that single detail determines whether archive-level verification is available before extraction or whether a post-boot checksum pass is the only option.