guara/docs/cli.md

Terminal reference

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Reading a raw disk requires privileges: administrator on Windows, sudo on Linux and macOS. Use guara <command> --help for the full list of options.

Commands

Command	What it does
devices	Lists disks and USB sticks, warns about TRIM and mounted volumes
inspect <source>	Partitions, unpartitioned space, encryption
health <source>	Disk health (SMART); requires smartmontools
scan <source>	Scan for deleted and lost files
resume <session>	Continues a paused scan
recover <session> <destination>	Recovers the files of a session
image <source> <destination>	Forensic image (raw, E01 or AFF4)
verify <image>	Checks an E01 or Ex01 image against the stored hash
hash <source>	MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 of the device
search <source> <terms...>	Text across the whole disk, UTF-8 and UTF-16
export <session> <csv>	Spreadsheet of the findings
report <session> <file>	Printable report, HTML or PDF (by the file extension)
sign keygen|file|verify|recovery	Ed25519 signatures of manifests, reports and files; checks a whole recovery folder
audit	Audit trail of every action (who, when, what); --verify checks the hash chain
sessions	Automatically saved sessions
ui	Interface in the browser (127.0.0.1, with token)

--json exists on devices, inspect, health and scan.

Scanning

sudo guara scan /dev/sdb --session s.json --list     # deep, with listing
sudo guara scan /dev/sdb --quick                     # metadata only, in seconds
guara scan disk.img --category image,document --min-confidence medium
guara scan disk.img --recover /mnt/other-disk/Recovered

Filters (valid on scan, recover, export and report):

Option	Effect
--category	image, document, video, audio, archive, database, other (comma separated)
--min-confidence	low, medium or high
--name	only names and paths that contain the text
--organize	how to write: folders (original folders), type, date or flat

Recovery

guara recover s.json /mnt/other-disk/Recovered --category image
guara resume s.json

The destination must be on another disk. Every recovery writes guara-manifesto.json with the MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 of every file. If the recovery is interrupted, repeating the command skips what was already copied and checked.

Encrypted volumes

sudo guara scan /dev/sdb1 --ask-password
sudo guara scan /dev/sdb1 --recovery-key 111111-222222-333333-444444-555555-666666-777777-888888
sudo guara scan /dev/sdb1 --key-file key.BEK
sudo guara scan /dev/sdb1 --volume-key 4f2a...

Option	Use
--ask-password	Asks in the terminal, without echo. Preferred
GUARA_PASSWORD	Environment variable with the password
--password	Password on the command line (stays in the shell history)
--recovery-key	BitLocker numeric key
--key-file	BitLocker .BEK or LUKS keyfile
--volume-key	Volume key in hexadecimal (the one Guará shows when it opens a volume)
--remember-keys	Stores the keys of opened volumes in the session (never the password)

RAID and LVM

Pass the main disk and the other members with --member, repeated. Use - for a missing disk.

# With mdadm or LVM metadata: Guará reads everything by itself
guara inspect disk1.img --member disk2.img --member disk3.img

# Without metadata: discovers level, stripe size, layout and order
guara scan disk1.img --member disk2.img --member disk3.img --raid

# Fixing what you already know
guara scan disk1.img --member disk2.img --member - --raid \
  --raid-level 5 --raid-chunk-kb 64 --raid-layout left-symmetric --raid-order 0,1,2

Forensic image

sudo guara image /dev/sdb /mnt/other-disk/sdb.img                      # raw, with error map
sudo guara image /dev/sdb /mnt/other-disk/sdb --format e01 \
  --case 2026-001 --examiner "Name" --evidence E1 --description "Laptop HDD"
sudo guara image /dev/sdb /mnt/other-disk/sdb --format aff4
guara verify /mnt/other-disk/sdb.E01

For E01: --segment-mib (size of each segment, default 1500, 0 for a single file) and --compression (0 to 9, default 1).

Digital signatures

guara sign keygen                                # creates the key pair (never overwrites one)
guara sign file report.pdf                       # writes report.pdf.assinatura.json
guara sign verify report.pdf --trust 1a2b:3c4d:5e6f:7a8b:9c0d
guara sign recovery /mnt/other-disk/Recovered    # manifest signature and the hash of every file

With a key configured, recover and report sign the manifest and the report on their own. The signature covers the SHA-256, size, name, time and signer; anyone can check it with Guará or with openssl (it is plain Ed25519 over the message documented in crates/guara-core/src/sign.rs). A valid signature proves the file did not change since it was signed by whoever holds the key; to know whose key it is, compare the fingerprint with the one the examiner published outside the machine (--trust). The private key lives in assinatura.key in the configuration folder (or where GUARA_SIGNING_KEY points), mode 0600; keep a copy and consider keeping it on an encrypted volume. The time is the signing machine's clock, not a third-party timestamp.

Audit trail

Every action that touches evidence is appended to auditoria.jsonl in the configuration folder (or to the file named by GUARA_AUDIT_LOG): opening a source (inspect, scan), recover, image, hash, search, verify, exports and sessions. Each line has the time (UTC), the system user (the one behind sudo), the host, the Guará version and the details; set GUARA_EXAMINER to also record the examiner's name. Passwords and keys are never written.

guara audit                  # lists the entries
guara audit --tail 20 --json
guara audit --verify         # checks the chain; exits with an error if it is broken

The lines are chained: each one carries the SHA-256 of the previous hash plus its own content, so editing, removing or reordering an entry is detected and --verify says which one. Cutting the end of the file cannot be detected by the file alone: keep the hash printed by --verify somewhere else (for example in the case notes).

Video without an index (MP4 without moov)

Pass an intact video from the same camera or drone so Guará can rebuild the index:

guara scan card.img --reference GOOD_VIDEO.MP4 --category video

--reference can be repeated. Audio is not reconstructed.

Text search

sudo guara search /dev/sdb "contract" "ssn" --case-sensitive --max 500

Searches in UTF-8 and UTF-16 (--no-utf16 turns it off), including free space and areas outside partitions. Shows position, partition and context. --max limits the results (default 200).

Report

guara report s.json report.html --case 2026-001 --examiner "Name" --hash-source

Includes case identification, source, partitions, summary, hashes, the audit trail status and the list of files. --hash-source adds the hash of the whole source. The format follows the extension: report.pdf writes an A4 PDF (standard fonts, nothing external), anything else writes HTML.

update — updating

guara update           # check for a new version
guara update --apply   # download, verify the SHA-256 and swap the executable