Checksum question (Solaris 2.5.1)

From: Jim Harmon (jharmon@telecnnct.com)
Date: Wed Aug 06 1997 - 16:23:17 CDT


Hello all, and particularly Gurus!

I have a question about what I see as a result of the "sum" command in
Solaris 2.5.1

A user has reported to me that the checksum is being reported
differently each time he runs the checkum on a single file.

File is:

  461289984 Aug 5 19:11 fred-u4

  (It's a compressed workstation backup file)

Here's what he saw:

> sum fred-u4
    38476 900957 fred-u4

> sum fred-u4
    1726 900957 fred-u4

Here's what >I< saw from the same command:

> sum fred-u4
    50041 900957 fred-u4

> sum fred-u4
    32163 900957 fred-u4

and with the "alternate" option:

> sum -r fred-u4
    25905900957 fred-u4
(I assume there's a field overrun and this is really "25905 900957")

> sum -r fred-u4
    53337900957 fred-u4 ( 53337 900957 )

So to ME, (the man page wasn't specific about this) the checksum is the
second number, and the first number is probably a seed for the
algorythm.

Am I wrong, or is the "sum" program giving me bad data?

We rely heavily on these backups, and an inconsistant checksum is
disturbing.

Any thoughts, ideas, facts?

TIA!

-- 
   Jim Harmon                           The Telephone Connection
jim@telecnnct.com                          Rockville, Maryland



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