Learn How to Generate and Verify Files with MD5 Checksum in Linux

A checksum is a digit which serves as a sum of correct digits in data, which can be used later to detect errors in the data during storage or transmission. MD5 (Message Digest 5) sums can be used as a checksum to verify files or strings in a Linux file system.

MD5 Sums are 128-bit character strings (numerals and letters) resulting from running the MD5 algorithm against a specific file. The MD5 algorithm is a popular hash function that generates 128-bit message digest referred to as a hash value, and when you generate one for a particular file, it is precisely unchanged on any machine no matter the number of times it is generated.

It is normally very difficult to find two distinct files that results in same strings. Therefore, you can use md5sum to check digital data integrity by determining that a file or ISO you downloaded is a bit-for-bit copy of the remote file or ISO.

Suggested Read: Progress – Monitor Progress for (cp, mv, dd, tar, etc.) Commands in Linux

In Linux, the md5sum program computes and checks MD5 hash values of a file. It is a constituent of GNU Core Utilities package, therefore comes pre-installed on most, if not all Linux distributions.

Take a look at the contents of /etc/group saved as groups.cvs below.

root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:syslog,aaronkilik
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
news:x:9:
uucp:x:10:
man:x:12:
proxy:x:13:
kmem:x:15:
dialout:x:20:
fax:x:21:
voice:x:22:
cdrom:x:24:aaronkilik
floppy:x:25:
tape:x:26:
sudo:x:27:aaronkilik
audio:x:29:pulse
dip:x:30:aaronkilik

The md5sums command below will generate a hash value for the file as follows:

$ md5sum groups.csv
bc527343c7ffc103111f3a694b004e2f  groups.csv

When you attempt to alter the contents of the file by removing the first line, root:x:0: and then run the command for a second time, try to observe the hash value:

$ md5sum groups.csv
46798b5cfca45c46a84b7419f8b74735  groups.csv

You will notice that the hash value has now changed, indicating that the contents of the file where altered.

Now, put back the first line of the file, root:x:0: and rename it to group_file.txt and run the command below to generate its hash value again:

$ md5sum groups_list.txt
bc527343c7ffc103111f3a694b004e2f  groups_list.txt

From the output above, the hash value is still the same even when the file has been renamed, with its original content.

Important: md5 sums only verifies/works with the file content rather than the file name.

The file groups_list.txt is a duplicate of groups.csv, so, try to generate the hash value of the files at the same time as follows.

You will see that they both have equal hash values, this is because they have the exact same content.

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