[Libreoffice-qa] Use of MD5 and other HASH values of LibO package downloads and alternate distribution DVD uploads

[V Stuart Foote]

Tim,

We applaud the work you've been doing on the English-NA-DVD, but since you've taken on that responsibility its "cradle to grave" handling also requires that you validate receipt of the initial ISO image upload to the Document Foundation Mirrors.

TDF will take your upload of bundled components and post it exactly as they receive it. Followed by TDF implemented MirrorBrain metadata service that calculates the initial HASH values (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and BitTorrent) and publishes the details for use on the download mirrors.

Point is, they won't normally test that they have a good upload from your build system--that responsibility is yours.  And to add to your effort, to be technically correct you should probably verify the HASH value of each component installer you download for use in the compilation--found most conveniently at the http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/ where you probably want the stable/ tree (and can check on your box/ DVD distro).  Navigate down into the build you are compiling and the OS. On the page listing the language specific  installers each file will have a corresponding MirriorBrain provisioned link labeled "Details" that has full metadata of just that file including the HASH values. Check each package you will bundle against those values so you know you have a clean download.  You probably don't want to be responsible for distributing a corrupt install package that was incompletely downloaded as you build the DVD.

Then, once compiled into your English-NA-DVD .iso image,  you need to calculate a HASH value of the ISO being uploaded. You need this to compare what you send against what the transfer server receives. 

After upload, or probably once published to the TDF mirror,  compare the HASH value(s) the MirrorBrain published metadata. When uploading or downloading I generally will calculate and compare against the first few digits of MD5 and SHA256 HASH values

As an example, since you are on a Linux, you have the terminal window command line use of these commands:

"md5sum LO-3.5.6_English-NA-DVD_all-platforms_multi-lang_plus-extras_v2.iso"

"sha1sum LO-3.5.6_English-NA-DVD_all-platforms_multi-lang_plus-extras_v2.iso"

"sha256sum LO-3.5.6_English-NA-DVD_all-platforms_multi-lang_plus-extras_v2.iso"

Folks on Windows don't have a Microsoft provided digest tool--command line or GUI. But there are many to be found. Because of the range of digest HASH types I have to deal with I prefer a digest tool integrated with the Windows shell and widely use the "freeware" Hash & CRC tool published in the fileTweak utilizes of Febooti. Available here: http://www.febooti.com/downloads/  Installed as administrator, it then gives ALL users the ability to calculate HASH values from the Properties panel (i.e. <right mouse>) of any file viewable in Windows explorer shell GUI.

If you'd like to compare for real, here are the HASH values for the last ISO build you posted as available at:

 http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/box/3.5.6/LO-3.5.6_English-NA-DVD_all-platforms_multi-lang_plus-extras_v2.iso.mirrorlist

LO-3.5.6_English-NA-DVD_all-platforms_multi-lang_plus-extras_v2.iso

Powered by MirrorBrain

    Size: 3.8G (4044062720 bytes)
    Last modified: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 03:58:15 GMT (Unix time: 1345607895)
    SHA-256 Hash: 55d62394196ab920d99ec99480d515672d738a152c26c92177500cd3113c8fa7
    SHA-1 Hash: 8560042169d28f30053f91aae5523fbac049234b
    MD5 Hash: 96560a0b6c117a07d32d33baa1e2ef30
    BitTorrent Information Hash: 9ea3cc57031a78cb5af214a041637a5ff2f30648


Hope that is clear enough so that it helps you to understand that there is a bit more work you need to take on to assure the quality of your DVD box/  (i.e. as in Boxed set software distribution).

Stuart

p.s. I've cc'd this to the QA list to see if there are any other recommendations for the process.

   

________________________________


From: webmaster-Kracked_P_P [mailto:webmaster at krackedpress.com]
Sent: Sun 10/21/2012 10:34 AM
To: users at global.libreoffice.org
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] North American DVD 3.5.6




NO ONE
has given me the  answer before on how to create a md5sum file before. 
And I asked that question back in the 3.3.x version days.

I have printed your answer out to PDF and I will place it on my
folder[s] for the NA-DVD work.

I use Ubuntu 12.04/MATE [10.04/GNOME before this month] to create the
NA-DVD web site and the ISO file.
I use Kompozer and Kate for most of the HTML work.
I use K3b to create the ISO file
I use Filezilla as my FTP client.

K3b creates a checksum but I do not know where it is "stored" for my use.



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