In the Misc section of the configuration file, you can choose between initializing the database, updating it, or checking the files against the existing database:
        ChecksumTest=
        init|update|check|none 
      
If you use the mode 
      none, you should specify on the command
      line one of 
      init, 
      update, or 
      check, like: 
      samhain -t 
      check 
As of version 1.8.1, there is a new command line flag --interactive to enable interactive updates. If you use this flag together with -t update, you will be asked if the database entry should be updated, whenever samhain encounters a modified file.
As of version 2.8.6, updates can also be done using a
      text file listing paths (one per line) of files to update,
      with the command line flag 
      --listfile=
      path_to_listfile