Question

I have two different version of a website, an older version, and a newer version that is supposed to have some sort of virus on it (or malicious code of some kind). I need to perform a diff between the two sites and try to eliminate the virus in the newer one.

After some searching I found netbeans 7.1 is able to do this using it’s Git Repository. I was following this tutorial http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/ide/git.html but I am not getting the same options on my screen as in the tutorial. I am using netbeans 7.1 RC1 and downloaded the jdk from the link on that same page. The jdk download itself says jdk7 but the folder it creates on my computer is named jdk1.7.0_01 . I’m assuming jdk7 is short for jdk1.7 .

I get as far as the very end of the “Initializing a Git Repository” step. The end when it says “All the project files are marked Added in your Working Tree. To view a file status, place the cursor over the file name in the Projects window. The status of the file in the Working Tree displays in green to the right of the slash like shown in the following picture.” does not happen.

I tried going further anyway, but there is just more and more options that do not show up for me.

I am also open to another way to perform a diff operation between the sites, it doesn’t have to be with using netbeans. I should note however I do not have access to a unix box. So the solution has to work for windows, or I guess I can go on a coworkers mac if I need to.

Thank you.

Answer 1

From your question, it sounds like you did not already have your web site code under version control. If that’s the case then I’d suggest doing so, and git is a very good choice. It is what I use.

Your goal, however, is to diff the older version of your site with the “newer” (possibly infected) version, and that can be done without having to deal with a version control system. There are several good diff tools for Windows. I mainly use WinMerge, as I like its user interface and simplicity. KDiff3 is another good one, and I use that one in conjunction with git merge operations, because it supports a three-way-merge comparison (which WinMerge does not).

If you were to use WinMerge for your diff, and you had the code from the old version in Q:\example.com\old-version and the “new” version in Q:\example.com\current-version, then you would start WinMerge, and either choose File|Open... from the menu, or click on the open icon in the toolbar. You would get a dialog like the following, and would fill it in as shown:

If you filled everything in correctly, then you would be able to click on the OK button, and would get a list of file differences. Depending on the default settings, you might also see files that have not changed at all in that list. You can hide those using the View menu. Double-clicking on a file with differences will open the two versions and show you the differences.

Explore the WinMerge options. I have mine set, for example, to compare white-space differences, but to ignore different line endings (Unix’s LF versus Windows’ CR/LF).