SHA512SUM(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 SHA512SUM 💅

okay bestie, gather round, because we're talking about sha512sum — the manual page, the legend, the moment ✨ it lives in the GNU coreutils crew and it does exactly one job absolutely gorgeously: it computes and checks SHA512 message digests. 512 bits of pure ✨ integrity ✨. no cap.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sha512sum [OPTION]... [FILE]...

that's it. that's the whole vibe. options, then files, then slay. 🫶

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so like, what does it do? it prints or checks SHA512 (512-bit) checksums. that's the whole assignment. 📝

and here's the tea: it's the legacy interface to the cksum utility. like, it still works, it's still iconic, but it's the older way of doing things. it's giving vintage. it's giving classic. it's giving "still ate and left no crumbs." 👑

when you give it no FILE, or when FILE is literally just -, it reads from standard input. so you can pipe stuff in and it'll be like "got u bestie" 💖

✨ OPTIONS ✨

here we go, the moment you've all been waiting for 💅

  • -b, --binary — read in binary mode 🔥
  • -c, --check — read checksums from the FILEs and check them 👀
  • --tag — create a BSD-style checksum 🏷️
  • -t, --text — read in text mode. this is the default, so if you do nothing you're already doing this 🌸
  • -z, --zero — end each output line with NUL, not newline, and disable file name escaping. spicy. 🌶️

🦋 ...and the next five are ONLY for when you're verifying checksums 🦋

like, genuinely, if you're not checking checksums these five are just sitting there doing nothing. they're the friends who only show up to the function. 🙈

  • --ignore-missing — don't fail or report status for missing files. we simply do not perceive them 💀
  • --quiet — don't print OK for each successfully verified file. it's humble. it's lowkey. 🤫
  • --status — don't output ANYTHING, the status code shows success. silent but deadly. main character energy 💜
  • --strict — exit non-zero for improperly formatted checksum lines. it's strict because it cares 😤
  • -w, --warn — warn about improperly formatted checksum lines. it's the gentler sibling. still judging u tho 🔍

and two more that are always invited:

  • --help — display this help and exit 🫶
  • --version — output version information and exit 🎀

👑 THE LORE (still DESCRIPTION, but make it lore) 👑

the sums are computed as described in FIPS-180-2. that's the standard, bestie, we don't make this up. 📚

when checking, the input should be a former output of this program — like, it's a matching game, you can't bring a random string to a checksum party. 🙅♀️

the default mode is to print a line with:

  • the checksum 🧾
  • a space
  • a character indicating input mode: '*' for binary, ' ' (a space) for text or where binary is insignificant
  • and the name for each FILE

so like, one line per file, checksum first, mode char second, filename third. that's the format. periodt. 💅

⚠️ important-ish note: there is no difference between binary mode and text mode on GNU systems. so on GNU, -b and -t are chill like that. on other systems? different story. 🙏

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Written by Ulrich Drepper, Scott Miller, and David Madore. three absolute legends. we stan. 👑

💌 REPORTING BUGS 💌

found a bug? don't be shy, tell the coreutils girlies:

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

  • cksum(1) — the whole family, go say hi 👋

Full documentation: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sha512sum or available locally via: info '(coreutils) sha2 utilities' 📖

and that's the whole page bestie, no notes 💖

this lil bundle right here is packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2), and the copyright belongs to Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. — the license is GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later, find it at https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

it's free software, so you are free to change and redistribute it 🫶 and there is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law 🙈

this is all coming at you from the GNU coreutils 9.10 era, dated August 2026. signing off, mwah 💋✨

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