MD5SUM

Package: WA2L/WinTools 1.2.09
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: April 2026
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

md5sum - compute and check MD5 message digest  

SYNOPSIS

md5sum [,OPTION/]... [,FILE/]...  

DESCRIPTION

Print or check MD5 (128-bit) checksums. Legacy interface to the cksum utility.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

-b, --binary
read in binary mode
-c, --check
read checksums from the FILEs and check them
-t, --text
read in text mode (default)
-z, --zero
end each output line with NUL, not newline, and disable file name escaping
 

The following five options are useful only when verifying checksums:

don't fail or report status for missing files
--status
don't output anything, status code shows success
--strict
exit non-zero for improperly formatted checksum lines
-w, --warn
warn about improperly formatted 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 space, a character indicating input mode ('*' for binary, ' ' for text or where binary is insignificant), and name for each FILE.

There is no difference between binary mode and text mode on GNU systems.  

BUGS

Do not use the MD5 algorithm for security related purposes. Instead, use an SHA-2, SHA-3, or BLAKE2 algorithm, implemented in the cksum(1) program.  

AUTHOR

Written by Ulrich Drepper, Scott Miller, and David Madore.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>  

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  

SEE ALSO

cksum(1)


Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/md5sum>
or available locally via: info aq(coreutils) md5sum invocationaq

 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
The following five options are useful only when verifying checksums:
BUGS
AUTHOR
REPORTING BUGS
COPYRIGHT
SEE ALSO
This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 13:50:01 GMT, May 04, 2026