GOST12SUM(1)

💖 GOST12SUM — okay bestie, let's talk hash digests 💖

So there's this little utility called gost12sum, and it lives on Debian GNU/Linux, and its whole entire job is to generate or check GOST R34.11-2012 message digests. That's it. That's the gig. And honestly? It ate. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

gost12sum [-bvl] [-c [file]] | [file...]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

gost12sum generates or checks GOST hash sums, bestie. The algorithm it uses to generate them is reasonably fast and strong enough for most cases — which is the manpage's way of saying "she's quick and she gets the job done." If you want the actual nerdy exact specification of the algorithm, it's in GOST R34.11-2012. Go read it. I'll wait. 🫶

Normally, gost12sum generates checksums of all the files you hand it as a parameter, then prints the checksums followed by the filenames. Cute, right? Classic.

BUT. If you pass -c, plot twist: only one filename parameter is allowed. That file is supposed to contain checksums and the filenames those checksums refer to, and then the files listed inside that file get checked against the checksums listed there. It's giving "receipts." See the -c option below for the full tea. 🍓

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -b — Use binary mode. In a unix environment, the only difference between this and normal mode is an asterisk preceding the filename in the output. That's literally it. One little *. Iconic behavior honestly. ⭐
• -c — Check the gost hashes of all files listed in file against the checksum listed in that same file. The actual format of that file is the same as the output of md5sum. So, each line in the file describes one file. A line looks like:

<hashsum> <filename>

So for example, if a file was created and its message digest calculated like so:

echo foo > hash-test-file; gost12sum hash-test-file

gost12sum would report:

3d4a51ee7713e6467442facefe06f153a303e7bdefbe7f9bdf2edb4ae9c866ff  hash-test-file

When invoked with the -c option, gost12sum normally works silently unless an error is found. Silent. Like, no notes, no commentary, just vibes. 👑 If you want to actually see the list of successfully checked files, use -v. 🙈

• -v — Be more verbose. Print filenames when checking (with -c). Basically it turns the silent treatment off. 💬
• -l — Use the long (512-bit) hash instead of the short (256-bit) one. Bigger hash, bigger energy. 🌈

💀 BUGS 💀

Okay so, real talk:

• This manpage is not quite accurate and has formatting inconsistent with other manpages. (The audacity. The drama. Not me admitting it in the manpage itself. 😭)
• gost12sum does not accept standard options like --help. So don't go looking for help, babe. It's not coming. 💀

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

The gost12sum utility was written by Cryptocom LTD. 👑

This manual page was written by Victor Wagner <vitus@wagner.pp.ru> for Debian GNU/Linux. 🫶

💜 And that's the whole page, bestie. Written for the Openssl manual set, dated 02 Aug 2016, filed under GOST12SUM(1). Slay, stay hashed, and always check your checksums. Periodt. 💅✨