CODEWITHSUNDEEP
md5
JayBoux
JayBoux

Reputation: 249

when I hash a file with Md5 what is hashed?

is it just the file contents that get hashed? Is there any way to include the file name and or metadata such as creation date into the hashing process?

Upvotes: 7

Views: 9264

Answers (2)

Charliemops
Charliemops

Reputation: 769

In general, all the file hashers encrypts only the binary content of the file.

You can prove this with the following process:

  1. Apply the md5 algorithm to a file
  2. Copy this file into other directory and change its name.
  3. Apply the md5 algorithm to the copy.
  4. Compare both of the results. They are equal!

Upvotes: 10

hfs
hfs

Reputation: 2603

MD5 tools will generally work with the binary content of the file. But you are of course free to put the file name and modification time into the content that gets hashed as well. E.g.

(stat -c %Y filename; echo filename; cat filename) | md5sum

Of course to verify the hash sum you have to use the exact same procedure, or else your hash sums will differ (e.g. when using different date formats).

Upvotes: 6

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