Using MD5 Checksums

Contents

MD5 Checksums are used to establish the code integrity of software you download. Using the md5sums grants you more security.

This is how you verify MD5 Checksums on All Platforms with the Firefox web browser:

  1. Install the MD Hash Tool extension for Firefox, then close and restart Firefox for it to take effect. (You may want to temporarily bookmark this page so you can easily find it again).
  2. Download the OpenOffice.org archive file for your Operating System.
  3. In Firefox, go to the "Downloads" window (if you don't see it, press Control-J or select Tools from the top menu, then Downloads) and right click the OpenOffice.org archive file, then select "Check Digest" as shown below.

  4. Copy the MD5 Checksum for the corresponding OpenOffice.org archive file from the MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page) and paste it into the "Reference Digest" space. Now, there are two possibilities:
    1. If a green light and "match" are displayed (as shown below), both checksums are the same. This means you have downloaded the OpenOffice.org package.
    2. If a red X and "no match" are displayed, the checksums do not match. This means an error occurred during download, or the file on the server is not the same as the original. If you are sure that the download proceeded without problems, then please inform webmasters@openoffice.org.

Note: If you downloaded the OpenOffice.org archive file before you installed MD Hash Tool, you can now verify the MD5 Checksum without downloading it again. Select Tools from the top menu, then MD Hash Tool. Input type: file and Hash Alg: MD5 should be the default. Click "browse..." then select the OpenOffice.org archive file, then click "compute digest." Compare the Message Digest (calculated MD5 Checksum) with the one listed for the corresponding OpenOffice.org archive on the MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page).

This is how you verify MD5 Checksums under Windows:

The Easy Way (digestIT with GUI)

digestIT is a graphical tool that should be easier to use for most Windows users.

  1. Download digestIT.
  2. Navigate in Windows Explorer to the directory where you saved/downloaded the OpenOffice.org archive.
  3. Right click the OpenOffice.org archive file in and select digestIT -> Verify MD5 Hash (or Calculate MD5 Hash).

  4. If you select "Verify MD5 Hash" then you will be able to copy and paste the MD5 from MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page). If the checksums match, you will see: "Digest matches. Verification succeeded."

    If you select "Calculate MD5 Hash" then you will need to visually compare the calculated MD5 with the one listed on the MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page).

The Less Easy Way (md5sum on the command line)

  1. Download md5sum.exe and copy the file to C:\Windows (or C:\WINNT for Windows NT 4.0/2000).
  2. Open a DOS prompt by clicking "Run" in the start menu, then type command (Windows 9x/ME) or cmd (WinNT/2K/XP).
  3. In the DOS prompt window, use the cd command to navigate to the subdirectory where you stored the downloaded OpenOffice.org archive file. For example, assume that your downloaded OpenOffice.org archive file is in C:\My Documents\Downloads\, then the command would be: cd "My Documents\Downloads".
  4. If it is on another drive, e.g. on the D: drive, you have to change the drive with d: and then change to the proper subdirectory using the "cd" command.
  5. Now type md5sum archive_name.exe
    With most users this will look like: md5sum [filename]
  6. The md5sum program will calculate the checksum of the archive file, and it will show this on the next line, followed by * Archive_name.exe
    It should look something like this:

  7. Compare the calculated MD5 Checksum with the one listed for the corresponding OpenOffice.org archive on the MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page).
  8. For easier comparison, you could make the DOS prompt window smaller and place it above the window showing the listed checksums. Now, there are two possibilities:
    1. Both checksums are the same. This means you have downloaded the OpenOffice.org package.
    2. The checksums do not match. This means an error occurred during download, or the file on the server is not the same as the original. If you are sure that the download proceeded without problems, then please inform webmasters@openoffice.org.

This is how you verify MD5 Checksums under Linux:

  1. In the shell of your preference, type the command "md5sum Archivname.tar.gz"
  2. Compare the calculated MD5 Checksum with the one listed for the corresponding OpenOffice.org archive on the MD5Sum page (linked to on the latest download page).
  3. If the checksums do not match, and you are sure it isn't caused by an error during downloading, please inform webmasters@openoffice.org.

Links to the Windows md5sum checker md5sum.exe application

If one of the links below doesn't work, try another one. The small application downloaded is the same. md5.zip includes source code.

Original: Simon Brouwer (2003-11). Revised: Ant Bryan (2006-02).