md5sum

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md5sum

md5sum - compute and check MD5 message digest. The algorithm takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit "fingerprint" or "message digest" of the input.

md5sums are often used for downloadable software packages, as a security for the packages not haven't been changed by others then developers. The downloaded file should have the same checksum as the one published on the download page, next to the file.

md5sum [OPTION] [FILE]...
md5sum [OPTION] --check [FILE]

-b, --binary read files in binary mode (default on DOS/Windows)
-c, --check check MD5 sums against given list
-t, --text read files in text mode (default)

-status don't output anything, status code shows success
-w, --warn warn about improperly formated MD5 checksum lines
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit

The sums are computed as described in RFC 1321. When checking, the input should be a former output of this program. The default mode is to print a line with checksum, a character indicating type (`*' for binary, ` ' for text), and name for each FILE.

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