📁 rfind: A Robust, Auditable find in Rust

• Overview
• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Examples
• Why Rust?

rfind is a modern alternative to the classic Unix find, written entirely in Rust. It’s designed for developers, sysadmins, and security professionals who need precise, scriptable, and auditable file discovery.

Unlike traditional tools, rfind offers semantic flags for privilege auditing, ergonomic CLI design, and strong guarantees around correctness and portability.

This project is part of my personal transition from Java backend development to systems programming in Rust, focusing on clarity, safety, and performance.

• ⚡ Fast Recursive Search — Efficient traversal with robust error handling
• 🧩 Type Filtering — Search by file type (file, dir)
• 🔐 Permission Matching — Exact or masked octal permissions (--perm 755, --perm /4000)
• 🧠 Privilege Flags — Detect SUID, SGID, executable-by-others, or root-owned files
• 🔍 Name Matching — Glob patterns (--name '*.sh') with optional case sensitivity
• 📣 Verbose Mode — Show permission errors and inaccessible paths
• 🧪 Unit-Tested — Core filters covered by Rust unit tests

git clone https://github.com/tuusuario/rfind
cd rfind
cargo build --release

Binary will be available at ./target/release/rfind.

🚀 Usage

rfind [OPTIONS]

Options: -p, --path Directory to start searching from [default: .] -t, --types Filter by type: file, dir [default: file dir] -n, --name Glob pattern to match file/directory names -c, --case-sensitive Enable case-sensitive name matching [default: true] --perm Filter by permissions (octal or masked with /) --suid Match files with SUID bit --sgid Match files with SGID bit --exec-other Match files executable by others --owned-by-root Match files owned by UID 0 -v, --verbose Show errors when directories can't be read -h, --help Print help -V, --version Print version

🧪 Examples

🔍 Find all .sh scripts executable by others

rfind --name '*.sh' --exec-other

🔐 Find SUID binaries owned by root

rfind --suid --owned-by-root --types file --perm /4000

📁 Find directories named config under /etc

rfind --path /etc --types dir --name config

🧾 Verbose scan of /usr for files with permission 644

rfind --path /usr --types file --perm 644 --verbose

🦀 Why Rust?

After 9 years of backend development in Java, I wanted to build tools that are:

Safe by default — no nulls, no data races

Portable — compile once, run anywhere

Ergonomic — expressive CLI with clap, strong typing, and clear error handling

Auditable — ideal for security tooling and filesystem analysis

Rust allows me to write code that is fast, correct, and maintainable — and rfind is my way of demonstrating that shift.