I was exploring around in the ubuntu unity terminal window when this came up:
When I typed:
file /bin/ls
the output is:
/bin/ls: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.24, BuildID[sha1]=0x214a38d0db472db559f0dabf0ae97f82fea83e03, stripped
I wanted to verify that the sha1 is correct and hence I typed this:
openssl sha1 /bin/ls
However, the output is as such:
SHA1(/bin/ls)= 8800fee57584ed1c44b638225c2f1eec818a27c2
While they are of the same length in hexadecimal, they don’t seem to match. Did I miss something? Or does the BuildID[sha1] refer to something else?
Answer:
Or does the BuildID[sha1] refer to something else?
BuildID is NOT the hash of a binary or related to it. It is an identifier for the “build” (or compiling) session which produced that binary. It is mostly there for debug purposes, so that the developers can look at the logs, environment, etc. from session number $BuildID and try to fix the problem, reproduce it, etc.
BTW, SHA1 hashes of anything are always 160 bits long 😃