CoolCheckSums

A simple tool to generate and verify checksums for files.

Index

Topic	Go
About	⬇️
Prerequisites/Dependencies	⬇️
Installation	⬇️
Usage and Examples	⬇️
Configuration	⬇️
Roadmap	⬇️

About

CoolCheckSums is a simple, cross-platform Python program designed to compute and compare checksums for files. It is designed to be easy to use and understand, and is intended to be used by anyone who needs to verify the integrity of files.

While there are ways to generate checksums on every platform, they are usually different and slow down the process of verifying the integrity of files. CCS shares one syntax across all platforms, and is designed to be as simple as possible.

Prerequisites/Dependencies

• Written in Python 3.10, but should work with most versions of Python 3.
• All dependencies are included in the standard library.
• Any modern operating system with a Python interpreter should be able to run CCS.

Installation

Currently, there is no way to install per se. You can clone the repository and directly run ccs.py with python3 or python depending on your OS.

Linux / macOS

To run CCS on Linux or macOS, you would have to use the following command:

python3 src/ccs.py

Obviously, this is inconvenient. In that case you have a few options:

Option 1: Alias

You can create an alias in your shell configuration file. For example, in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

alias ccs="python3 /path/to/ccs.py"

Option 2: Add to PATH

You can add the directory containing CCS to your PATH. For example, in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

If you choose this option, it's better if you created a bash script that runs CCS, and add the directory containing the bash script to your PATH.

You can find an (extremely simple) example bash script in examples/ccs.sh.

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/ccs.sh

Windows

To run CCS on Windows, you would have to use the following command:

python src\ccs.py

As with Linux and macOS, this is inconvenient. In that case you have a few options:

Option 1: Add to PATH

You can add the directory containing CCS to your PATH. For example, in System Properties > Environment Variables:

If you choose this option, it's better if you created a batch script that runs CCS, and add the directory containing the batch script to your PATH.

You can find an (extremely simple) example batch script in examples\ccs.bat.

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Eventually, CCS will have native binaries for Windows, Linux, and macOS. For that release, I plan to streamline/automate the installation process.

Usage and Examples

There are four main cases in which CCS can be used:

Case 1: Generate checksum with every algorithm available

If you don't specify an algorithm with -a or --algorithm, CCS will generate checksums for the file using every algorithm available.

ccs <file_path>

Case 2: Generate checksum with a specific algorithm

If you specify an algorithm with -a or --algorithm, CCS will generate a checksum for the file using that algorithm.

ccs <file_path> -a {md5,sha1,sha224,sha256,sha384,sha512}

Case 3: Verify checksum with every algorithm available

If you don't specify an algorithm with -a or --algorithm to check with, CCS will verify the checksums for the file using every algorithm available (either by guessing or by brute force).

ccs <file_path> <checksum>

Case 4: Verify checksum with a specific algorithm

If you specify an algorithm with -a or --algorithm to check with, CCS will verify the checksum for the file using that algorithm.

ccs <file_path> <checksum> -a {md5,sha1,sha224,sha256,sha384,sha512}

Aside from the main cases, there are a few other arguments that can be used:

• -h or --help: Display the help message.
• -v or --version: Display the version of CCS.
• -m or --machine-readable: Output the checksums/compare results in a machine-readable format. It disables the excess output, and displays the information in a format such as a boolean.

Configuration

At the moment, there is not much to configure in CCS. However, I have implemented a configuration loader that can read a config.json file in the root directory of the repository.

An example config.json file is as follows:

{
    "buffer_size": 65536
}

In the case that the config.json file is not found, the default values (config.py) will be used.

Roadmap

Currently, the main goal is to release executables for Windows, Linux, and macOS.