AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) was created in 1999-2000 by Rami Lehti and Paolo Viitanen as a free alternative to Tripwire. It was designed to be a file integrity checker for intrusion detection.
- 2000: First public release of AIDE
- 2002: Growing adoption in the Linux security community
- 2005: AIDE 0.10 with improved features
- 2008: AIDE 0.13 with enhanced configuration options
¶ Community Maintenance (2010-Present)
AIDE has been maintained by the open-source community with regular releases:
- 2013: AIDE 0.15 with improved performance
- 2016: AIDE 0.16 with better attribute support
- 2019: AIDE 0.17 with enhanced features
- 2023+: Continued maintenance and updates
| Year |
Version |
Notable Changes |
| 2000 |
0.1 |
Initial release |
| 2005 |
0.10 |
Improved features |
| 2013 |
0.15 |
Performance improvements |
| 2016 |
0.16 |
Better attribute support |
| 2019 |
0.17 |
Enhanced features |
- Written primarily in C
- Command-line interface
- Configuration file-based rules
- Database-driven integrity checking
- File integrity monitoring
- Configurable attribute checking
- Regular expression support for paths
- Multiple hash algorithm support
- Database comparison
¶ Impact and Legacy
AIDE’s contributions to security:
- Open-source alternative: Free alternative to commercial Tripwire
- Simplicity: Easy to configure and use
- Reliability: Proven track record in production environments
- Integration: Widely used in security baselines and compliance
AIDE remains actively maintained:
- Open-source: GPL-2.0 licensed
- Community-driven: Maintained by security community
- Package availability: Available in all major Linux distributions
- Compliance: Used in various security compliance frameworks
| Feature |
AIDE |
Tripwire |
| First Release |
2000 |
1998 |
| License |
GPL-2.0 |
GPL-2.0 (Open Source) |
| Development |
Community |
Tripwire Inc. (commercial) |
| Configuration |
Text files |
Text files |
| Cost |
Free |
Free (Open Source) / Commercial |