I tried to use sha256sum in High Sierra; I attempted to install it with MacPorts, as:
sudo port install sha256sum
It did not work.
What to do?
5 Answers
The CoreUtils package is also published as a Brew formulae. So if you have Brew installed you can also just run:
brew install coreutils
Then add PATH="/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:$PATH" to ~/.bashrc, run source ~/.bashrc and you're done.
-
Note that after
brew install coreutilsinstallation you will get a message likeCaveats: Commands also provided by macOS and the commands dir, dircolors, vdir have been installed with the prefix "g".joseluisq– joseluisq2023-02-19 21:11:30 +00:00Commented Feb 19, 2023 at 21:11 -
Looks like it is now installed into /opt/homebrew/bin.Max Waterman– Max Waterman2023-06-20 04:46:22 +00:00Commented Jun 20, 2023 at 4:46
After investigating a little, I found a ticket in an unrelated software in GitHub sha256sum command is missing in MacOSX , with several solutions:
installing coreutils
sudo port install coreutilsIt installs
sha256sumat/opt/local/libexec/gnubin/sha256sumAs another possible solution, using
openssl:
function sha256sum() { openssl sha256 "$@" | awk '{print $2}'; }
- As yet another one, using the
shasumcommand native to MacOS:
function sha256sum() { shasum -a 256 "$@" ; } && export -f sha256sum
If you just need a CLI command, simply
shasum -a 256 <file>
solves the problem. It is not necessary to install coreutils.
This is mentioned, though not prominently visible, in the comment to this question and also in Rui F Ribeiro's answer.
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Worked for me on 14.4.1B Seven– B Seven2024-05-16 13:09:09 +00:00Commented May 16, 2024 at 13:09
Supplemental Answer to Mig82's, whose answer handles the g-prefix for all executables in coreutils. I offer a tightly-scoped solution.
After coreutils installing with
brew install coreutils
ls /usr/local/bin/gsha*
will list the g-prefixed executables:
/usr/local/bin/gsha1sum/usr/local/bin/gsha224sum/usr/local/bin/gsha256sum/usr/local/bin/gsha384sum/usr/local/bin/gsha512sum
The solution is to create symbolic links to the ones you want using non-prefixed names (handling all carries the risk of breaking some programs that rely on BSD executables)
Example
shaarray=(\
/usr/local/bin/gsha1sum
/usr/local/bin/gsha224sum
/usr/local/bin/gsha256sum
/usr/local/bin/gsha384sum
/usr/local/bin/gsha512sum
)
function installsha() {
for i in "${shaarray[@]}"
do
printf "$i\n" | perl -pe 'printf $_; s/gsha/sha/' | xargs -n 2 ln -s
done
}
Linux Command (sha256sums)
If you're looking for an alternative to this
sha256sum --check SHA256SUMS
MacOS Command (shasum)
Then use this instead on MacOS
shasum --algorithm 256 --check SHA256SUMS
shasumbuilt in, and can use 256 as an option.