Hi, I'm new to Linux. I'm currently downloading Mandrake 10.1 (the iso images). Now in the download directory I found a file called Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD.md5 with the following lines in it: Code: 7833f17c3fbe95581c48cf3848792d21 Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD1.i586.iso 5850545e8fa3f63323a90b1403ec5064 Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD2.i586.iso 029f660c78e29427f775a54284fb7085 Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD3.i586.iso What is it good for? Thanks, Jay
MD5 hashes are a way of verifying the integrity of a file and that no one has changed or messed with the file in any way. You can use the tool md5sum (installed by default on Debian) to create a hash. So for example, Code: joe@terrarum:~$ md5sum /bin/ls ce1243c8b432abc494b01ff36ea909ef /bin/ls Now if I were to transfer /bin/ls to another computer, I could run the command again. If the md5sum matches, that means the file has not been tampered with and everything is fine.
Ah, I see. So after the download is finished, I type Code: md5sum Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD1.i586.iso to see if the downloaded file is an exact copy of the iso on the server, right? Jay
