Manual Pages  — MD5

md5, sha512, rmd160, md5sum, sha512sum, rmd160sum, shasum – calculate a message-digest fingerprint (checksum) for a file

SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION BSD OPTIONS GNU OPTIONS PERL OPTIONS EXIT STATUS EXAMPLES SEE ALSO BUGS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

md5 [-pqrtx] [-c string] [-s string] [file ...]

md5sum [-bctwz] [--binary] [--check] [--help] [--ignore-missing] [--quiet] [--status] [--strict] [--tag] [--text] [--version] [--warn] [--zero] [file ...]

(All other hashes have the same options and usage.)

shasum [-0bchqstUvw] [--01] [-a | --algorithm alg] [--binary] [--check] [--help] [--ignore-missing] [--quiet] [--status] [--strict] [--tag] [--text] [--UNIVERSAL] [--version] [--warn] [file ...]

The md5, rmd160, and skein1024 utilities take as input a message of arbitrary length and produce as output a "fingerprint" or "message digest" of the input.

The md5sum, sha512t224sum, and skein1024sum utilities do the same, but with command-line options and an output format that match those of their similary named GNU utilities.

The shasum utility does the same, but with command-line options and an output format that match those of the similarly named utility that ships with Perl.

In all cases, each file listed on the command line is processed separately. If no files are listed on the command line, or a file name is given as -, input is taken from stdin instead.

It is conjectured that it is computationally infeasible to produce two messages having the same message digest, or to produce any message having a given prespecified target message digest. The SHA-224 , SHA-256 , SHA-384 , SHA-512, RIPEMD-160, and SKEIN algorithms are intended for digital signature applications, where a large file must be "compressed" in a secure manner before being encrypted with a private (secret) key under a public-key cryptosystem such as RSA.

The MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms have been proven to be vulnerable to practical collision attacks and should not be relied upon to produce unique outputs, nor should they be used as part of a cryptographic signature scheme. As of 2017-03-02, there is no publicly known method to reverse either algorithm, i.e., to find an input that produces a specific output.

SHA-512t256 is a version of SHA-512 truncated to only 256 bits. On 64-bit hardware, this algorithm is approximately 50% faster than SHA-256 but with the same level of security. The hashes are not interchangeable.

SHA-512t224 is identical to SHA-512t256, but with the digest truncated to 224 bits.

It is recommended that all new applications use SHA-512 or SKEIN-512 instead of one of the other hash functions.

The following options are available in BSD mode, i.e. when the program is invoked with a name that does not end in "sum":

-c string , --check= string
	Compare the digest of the file against this string. If combined with the -q or --quiet option, the calculated digest is printed in addition to the exit status being set. (Note that this option is not yet useful if multiple files are specified.)
-p -, --passthrough
	Echo stdin to stdout and append the checksum to stdout. In this mode, any files specified on the command line are silently ignored.
-q -, --quiet
	Quiet mode — only the checksum is printed out. Overrides the -r or --reverse option.
-r -, --reverse
	Reverses the format of the output. This helps with visual diffs. Does nothing when combined with the -ptx options.
-s string , --string= string
	Print a checksum of the given string. In this mode, any files specified on the command line are silently ignored.
-t -, --time-trial
	Run a built-in time trial. For the -sum versions, this is a nop for compatibility with coreutils.
-x -, --self-test
	Run a built-in test script.

The following options are available in GNU mode, i.e. when the program is invoked with a name that ends in "sum":

-b -, --binary
	Read files in binary mode.
-c -, --check
	The file passed as arguments must contain digest lines generated by the same digest algorithm in either classical BSD format or in GNU coreutils format. A line with the file name followed by a colon ":" and either OK or FAILED is written for each well-formed line in the digest file. If applicable, the number of failed comparisons and the number of lines that were skipped since they were not well-formed are printed at the end. The --quiet option can be used to quiesce the output unless there are mismatched entries in the digest.
--help
	Print a usage message and exit.
--ignore-missing
	When verifying checksums, ignore files for which checksums are given but which aren't found on disk.
--quiet
	When verifying checksums, do not print anything unless the verification fails.
--status
	When verifying checksums, do not print anything at all. The exit code will reflect whether verification succeeded.
--strict
	When verifying checksums, fail if the input is malformed.
--tag
	Produce BSD-style output.
-t -, --text
	Read files in text mode. This is the default. Note that this implementation does not differentiate between binary and text mode.
--version
	Print version information and exit.
-w -, --warn
	When verifying checksums, warn about malformed input.
-z -, --zero
	Terminate output lines with NUL rather than with newline.

The following options are available in Perl mode, i.e. when the program is invoked with the name "shasum":

-0 -, --01
	Read files in bits mode: ASCII '0' and '1' characters correspond to 0 and 1 bits, respectively, and all other characters are ignored. See BUGS.
-a alg , --algorithm alg
	Use the specified algorithm: "1" for SHA-1 (default), "xxx" for xxx-bit SHA-2 (e.g. "256" for SHA-256) or "xxxyyy" for xxx-bit SHA-2 truncated to yyy bits (e.g. "512224" for SHA-512/224).
-b -, --binary
	Read files in binary mode.
-c -, --check
	The file passed as arguments must contain digest lines generated by the same digest algorithm in either classical BSD format or in GNU coreutils format. A line with the file name followed by a colon ":" and either OK or FAILED is written for each well-formed line in the digest file. If applicable, the number of failed comparisons and the number of lines that were skipped since they were not well-formed are printed at the end. The --quiet option can be used to quiesce the output unless there are mismatched entries in the digest.
--help
	Print a usage message and exit.
--ignore-missing
	When verifying checksums, ignore files for which checksums are given but which aren't found on disk.
--quiet
	When verifying checksums, do not print anything unless the verification fails.
--status
	When verifying checksums, do not print anything at all. The exit code will reflect whether verification succeeded.
--strict
	When verifying checksums, fail if the input is malformed.
--tag
	Produce BSD-style output.
-t -, --text
	Read files in text mode. This is the default. Note that this implementation does not differentiate between binary and text mode.
-U -, --UNIVERSAL
	Read files in universal mode: any CR-LF pair, as well as any CR not followed by LF, is translated to LF before the digest is computed.
--version
	Print version information and exit.
-w -, --warn
	When verifying checksums, warn about malformed input.

The md5, sha512t224, rmd160, and skein1024 utilities exit 0 on success, 1 if at least one of the input files could not be read, and 2 if at least one file does not have the same hash as the -c option.

The md5sum, sha512t224sum, rmd160 and shasum utilities exit 0 on success and 1 if at least one of the input files could not be read or, when verifying checksums, does not have the expected checksum.

Calculate the MD5 checksum of the string "Hello".

$ md5 -s Hello
MD5 ("Hello") = 8b1a9953c4611296a827abf8c47804d7

Same as above, but note the absence of the newline character in the input string:

$ echo -n Hello | md5
8b1a9953c4611296a827abf8c47804d7

Calculate the checksum of multiple files reversing the output:

$ md5 -r /boot/loader.conf /etc/rc.conf
ada5f60f23af88ff95b8091d6d67bef6 /boot/loader.conf
d80bf36c332dc0fdc479366ec3fa44cd /etc/rc.conf

This is almost but not quite identical to the output from GNU mode:

$ md5sum /boot/loader.conf /etc/rc.conf
ada5f60f23af88ff95b8091d6d67bef6  /boot/loader.conf
d80bf36c332dc0fdc479366ec3fa44cd  /etc/rc.conf

Note the two spaces between hash and file name. If binary mode is requested, they are instead separated by a space and an asterisk:

$ md5sum -b /boot/loader.conf /etc/rc.conf
ada5f60f23af88ff95b8091d6d67bef6 */boot/loader.conf
d80bf36c332dc0fdc479366ec3fa44cd */etc/rc.conf

Write the digest for /boot/loader.conf in a file named digest. Then calculate the checksum again and validate it against the checksum string extracted from the digest file:

$ md5 /boot/loader.conf > digest && md5 -c $(cut -f2 -d= digest) /boot/loader.conf
MD5 (/boot/loader.conf) = ada5f60f23af88ff95b8091d6d67bef6

Same as above but comparing the digest against an invalid string ("randomstring"), which results in a failure.

$ md5 -c randomstring /boot/loader.conf
MD5 (/boot/loader.conf) = ada5f60f23af88ff95b8091d6d67bef6 [ Failed ]

In GNU mode, the -c option does not compare against a hash string passed as parameter. Instead, it expects a digest file, as created under the name digest for /boot/loader.conf in the example above.

$ md5sum -c digest
/boot/loader.conf: OK

The digest file may contain any number of lines in the format generated in either BSD or GNU mode. If a hash value does not match the file, "FAILED" is printed instead of "OK".

In bits mode, the original shasum script is capable of processing inputs of arbitrary length. This implementation is not, and will issue an error if the input length is not a multiple of eight bits.

This utility was originally derived from a program which was placed in the public domain for free general use by RSA Data Security.

Support for SHA-1 and RIPEMD-160 was added by Oliver Eikemeier <Mt eik@FreeBSD.org>.

Support for SHA-2 was added by Colin Percival <Mt cperciva@FreeBSD.org> and Allan Jude <Mt allanjude@FreeBSD.org>.

Support for SKEIN was added by Allan Jude <Mt allanjude@FreeBSD.org>.

Compatibility with GNU coreutils was added by Warner Losh <Mt imp@FreeBSD.org> and much expanded by Dag-Erling Sm/orgrav <Mt des@FreeBSD.org>, who also added Perl compatibility.