How safe is GnuCash?

GWB gwb at 2realms.com
Fri Jan 13 00:29:34 EST 2017


Would snapshots of the file system accomplish what the original poster
is after?  That's pretty much what I do, but maybe my setup is odd.  I
use Ubuntu with both zfs and btrfs file systems.  Both can make
snapshots; zfs snapshots are read only by default, and require cloning
to a new file system to become writable.  btrfs makes writeable
snapshots by default, but you can specify read only snapshots.  Like
the burnable DVD option (which I like, by the way) snapshots freeze an
entire file system in time.

But that has nothing to do with GnuCash in particular, rather it might
provide a forensic trail for audit of an entire file system along with
any gnucash files. zfs is great, btrfs is pretty good and getting
better, but the learning curve is still steep (especially so for zfs).
Older operating systems like Plan 9 had snapshots (Fossil + Venti) and
Vax/VMS clusters could do the same for data in real time, but way too
much overkill for this.

But hey, who knows what auditors will accept as an explanation?  If
the question changes to, "Can you provide a forensic trail of all
changes made to a gnucash file?"  you could reply "Yes, we can provide
read only snapshots of the entire filesystem for whatever time
interval you like, 24 hours, 1 hour, 1 week, etc."  If the auditor
accepts that, then use zfs, either on your working computer or a back
up server, use gnucash, and go on your merry way.

This thread, however, has inspired me to believe that we have made a
breakthrough in 13th century double entry bookkeeping.  Use the big
paper ledger, then take out your cell phone and take pictures of the
pages with an included date and time stamp (or just place the banner
of the day's newspaper at the top).

Does any piece of software do what the original post is asking?  It
may not be gnucash, but computing in general.  Some word processors
have "roll back", some CAD programs can save the last 10 or 50
changes, and wiki's by their nature show, keep and revert to changes
in versions.

Gordon

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Buddha Buck <blaisepascal at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 6:54 PM Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>    Here's the solution: git. This is version control software (like CSV,
>> Subversion, Mercurial, etc.) and would be ideal for this. It's F/OSS and
>> you
>> can download it at <https://git-scm.com/>. I use it for all development
>> projects and documents like books, major reports, and collaborative works
>> with colleages. In the last instance they can also commit changes to the
>> git
>> repository so we're all working with the latest version.
>>
>>    Set up the repository in the directory with your bookkeeping data. Then,
>> daily (or at whatever time is appropriate) run 'git add <data_filename>'
>> followed by 'git commit -M "<Explaination of changes>" and the differences
>> from one commitment to the next are stored. You can always revert to an
>> earlier version, or look at any particular version you want.
>>
>
> Git solves the wrong problem here.
>
> Git makes it easy to preserve many versions of a file, and also to make
> branches of versions of a file, but it doesn't provide a way to protect or
> detect the actions of a malfeasor making illicit changes to the file.
>
> GnuCash does produce copious .log files in normal operation. Those do
> provide a potential way to hook into an audit trail, since the information
> recorded there does include when a transaction was created, edited, and
> deleted.
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