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MD5(1) General Commands Manual MD5(1) NAME md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, sha512t224, sha512t256, rmd160, skein256, skein512, skein1024, md5sum, sha1sum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum, sha512sum, sha512t224sum, sha512t256sum, rmd160sum, skein256sum, skein512sum, skein1024sum, shasum -- calculate a message-digest fingerprint (checksum) for a file SYNOPSIS 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 ...] DESCRIPTION The md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, sha512t224, sha512t256, rmd160, skein256, skein512, 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, sha1sum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum, sha512sum, sha512t224sum, sha512t256sum, rmd160sum, skein256sum, skein512sum, and skein1024sum utilities do the same, but with command-line options and an output format that match those of their similary named GNU utili- ties. 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 sepa- rately. If no files are listed on the command line, or a file name is given as -, input is taken from stdin instead. The utility's different modes have different output formats, but in all cases, filenames containing unprintable characters are encoded as de- scribed in vis(3) using the VIS_CSTYLE | VIS_OCTAL style. It is conjectured that it is computationally infeasible to produce two messages having the same message digest, or to produce any message hav- ing 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 prac- tical collision attacks and should not be relied upon to produce unique outputs, nor should they be used as part of a cryptographic signature scheme. 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 inter- changeable. 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. BSD OPTIONS 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 com- bined 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. GNU OPTIONS 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 gener- ated by the same digest algorithm in either classical BSD for- mat or in GNU coreutils format. A line with the file name fol- lowed 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 ver- ification 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. PERL OPTIONS 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 corre- spond 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 gener- ated by the same digest algorithm in either classical BSD for- mat or in GNU coreutils format. A line with the file name fol- lowed 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 ver- ification 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. EXIT STATUS The md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, sha512t224, sha512t256, rmd160, skein256, skein512, 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, sha1sum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum, sha512sum, sha512t224sum, sha512t256sum, rmd160, skein256, skein512, skein1024 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. EXAMPLES 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 in- put 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 re- quested, 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 un- der 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". SEE ALSO cksum(1), md5(3), ripemd(3), sha(3), sha256(3), sha384(3), sha512(3), skein(3), vis(3) R. Rivest, The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm, RFC1321. J. Burrows, The Secure Hash Standard, FIPS PUB 180-2. D. Eastlake and P. Jones, US Secure Hash Algorithm 1, RFC 3174. RIPEMD-160 is part of the ISO draft standard "ISO/IEC DIS 10118-3" on dedicated hash functions. Secure Hash Standard (SHS): https://www.nist.gov/publications/secure-hash-standard-shs The RIPEMD-160 page: https://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~bosselae/ripemd160.html CAVEATS The encoding used for file names containing non-printable characters is incompatible with that used by GNU coreutils. The encoding used by GNU coreutils is non-reversible, in that certain non-printable characters are encoded while others are simply omitted. The encoding used by this utility, on the other hand, is fully reversible. If interoperability with GNU coreutils is required, it is recommended to ensure that all file names contain only printable characters. BUGS In bits mode, the original shasum script is capable of processing in- puts of arbitrary length. This implementation is not, and will issue an error if the input length is not a multiple of eight bits. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 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 <eik@FreeBSD.org>. Support for SHA-2 was added by Colin Percival <cperciva@FreeBSD.org> and Allan Jude <allanjude@FreeBSD.org>. Support for SKEIN was added by Allan Jude <allanjude@FreeBSD.org>. Compatibility with GNU coreutils was added by Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org> and much expanded by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>, who also added Perl compatibility. FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly April 6, 2026 MD5(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | CAVEATS | BUGS | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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