MD5(1) General Commands Manual MD5(1)

md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, md5sum, sha1sum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum, sha512sum — calculate a message-digest fingerprint (checksum) for a file

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, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512 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, and sha512sum utilities do the same, but with command-line options and an output format that match those of their similary named GNU utilities.

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, and SHA-512 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, As of 2017-03-02, there is no publicly known method to either algorithm, i.e., to find an input that produces a specific output.

It is recommended that all new applications use SHA-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”:

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.)
, --passthrough
Echo stdin to stdout and append the checksum to stdout. In this mode, any files specified on the command line are silently ignored.
, --quiet
Quiet mode — only the checksum is printed out. Overrides the -r or --reverse option.
, --reverse
Reverses the format of the output. This helps with visual diffs. Does nothing when combined with the -ptx options.
string, --string=string
Print a checksum of the given string. In this mode, any files specified on the command line are silently ignored.
, --time-trial
Run a built-in time trial. For the -sum versions, this is a nop for compatibility with coreutils.
, --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”:

, --binary
Read files in binary mode.
, --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.
Print a usage message and exit.
When verifying checksums, ignore files for which checksums are given but which aren't found on disk.
When verifying checksums, do not print anything unless the verification fails.
When verifying checksums, do not print anything at all. The exit code will reflect whether verification succeeded.
When verifying checksums, fail if the input is malformed.
Produce BSD-style output.
, --text
Read files in text mode. This is the default. Note that this implementation does not differentiate between binary and text mode.
Print version information and exit.
, --warn
When verifying checksums, warn about malformed input.
, --zero
Terminate output lines with NUL rather than with newline.

The md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512 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, and sha512sum 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.

$ md5 -c digest /boot/loader.conf
/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”.

cksum(1), md5(3), sha(3), sha256(3), sha384(3), sha512(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.

Secure Hash Standard (SHS): https://www.nist.gov/publications/secure-hash-standard-shs

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 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>.

Compatibility with GNU coreutils was added by Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org> and much expanded by Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>.

February 13, 2024 macOS 15.0