ECC wrapper?
 

Is there a generic ECC wrapper / unwrapper which utilizes ECC codes to ensure data integrity, when transmitting or storing critical data? Like an executable I can schedule from a shell?

Thanks.

ps: Not dvdisaster, which appears to be oriented at utilizing specific media.

checksums (like md5) are used to check data integrity.

They check integrity, but do not provide for correction.

My concept is that an ECC wrapper includes ECC data, and an unwrapper would take those ECC bits out of the data stream, but correct for losses or errors (reporting them).

Thus data you wanted to be secure for archival purposes, or transmission / distribution purposes, could be transmitted or saved with ECC codes. Errors, to the degree of the encoding, could be corrected.

Granted, most data transmission schemes have checksums, an error of which might trigger a re-transmission of a data packet.

There are various FLOSS libs that implement Reed-Solomon ECC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2...External_links

Other options:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-den...ity-check_code
Note that the turbo code patent expired last year.

See:
http://itpp.sourceforge.net/4.3.1/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-den...External_links

Actually, I am quite acquainted with RS and Turbocodes, and while they might be applicable here, I was really looking for a tool which was already in use. It appears there are none.

The only non-library programs I know of are for optical media (dvdisaster and a few others). I believe they are also used internally by HDDs.

There is some small error correction ability built-in to lzip, which I do use as well:
http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html