Re: Please integrate MD5SUM into ISO files

[Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 06:54:55PM +0300, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
>Hello,
>
>One thing that I consider very useful -- is the addition of MD5sum
>into the ISO image itself.
>
>Thankfully Debian already has the tools to do this:
>"implantisomd5 mydata.iso"
>and
>"checkisomd5 -v mydata.iso"
>
>This is very handy to check multiple ISOs quickly without resorting to
>an external file like "isos.md5", especially when I copy the ISOs from
>one Hard Disk to the next, and may forget the accompanying .md5 file.
>
>This idea comes from Red Hat, but it is universally convenient to use
>on any ISO files.

Sorry, no:

1. This modifies the image, so the checksums we make of images *as we
   make them* would be broken.

2. MD6 has not been a sensible algorithm for secure hashing in a very
   long time. We stopped providing MD5 checksums for our images
   several years ago because of this.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
The two hard things in computing:
 * naming things
 * cache invalidation
 * off-by-one errors                  -- Stig Sandbeck Mathisen