[SOLVED] Apparent md5sum failures, Beta 4 ISO from AU mirror

[linuxnovice]

Hi Folks,

I tried downloading the x86 64 bit Mageia 3 Beta 4 ISO over the weekend. The first download failed the checksum test. So, per instructions on the download page, I didn't use it and tried again with a different AU mirror via ftp rather than http, but again the checksum failed on the download. My test results below.

Anyway, I was out of download quota and had a spare machine so tried installing one of the ISO's. The install seems to be successful so far. So I'm just curious, am I running the md5sum command wrong somehow? Or since it installed ok does that mean I'm home safe? By the way, uname -r spits out 3.8.3-desktop-2.mga3 - so it seems to be the correct major version of Mageia at least.

Thanks,
Ben.

Here's my experiment with the downloads and md5sum (sha1sum also failed but not listed here) :

My 1st attempt:
Mirror: http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/mageia
Command: md5sum Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
Output: 9ec3c19499df406fbf2539d3966ffd78 Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso

The official signature listed on the mageia website:
$ md5sum Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
8e4fed8ad28e47d5abc7a467bbf9c80f

My 2nd attempt:
Mirror: ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/i ... 64-DVD.iso
Command: md5sum Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
Output: abb67cbe3c2b457160c28edd003c5dc3

[Ken-Bergen]

I just downloaded the iso you did from the first mirror you posted and the checksum of it is correct, so I suspect that your internet connection is introducing errors.

As your install went smoothly I'd not worry but I also wouldn't use that iso to do more installs on other hardware or even use it as a source for installing packages on your installation as there's no way of knowing what is corrupt.

[linuxnovice]

OK, thanks for the confirmation Ken.

I'll download the Beta 4 ISO again at some stage and try a reinstall as I don't have much vested in this installation so far. I do eventually want Mageia 3 on this new machine as a permanent replacement for an old Mandriva box, but that can wait til the officially released Mageia 3 ISOs come out.

I'll mark the original post as solved if I can figure out how to go back an edit it.

Thanks again.

Ben

[jkerr82508]

You should be able to repair the corrupt iso using bit-torrent:

Start the download using a bit-torrent client (for example ktorrent or transmission) with the appropriate torrent file. After a minute or so, stop the download and Quit the client. Copy your corrupted iso over the iso that the bit-torrent client has begun to create. Re-start the bit-torrent client and the download. The bit-torrent client will check the integrity of the iso file and then download and replace only the corrupted portions of the iso.

(Note that, by default, the Mageia torrent will create a directory in the download location. The iso file will be inside that directory.)

Jim

[linuxnovice]

Hi Jim,

That was a ridiculously simple and effective solution! I did mostly as suggested and the whole thing was completed in maybe less than 2 minutes after restarting KTorrent. (I actually suspended the download after restarting KTorrent as it seemed to be lumbering along as it was to start with. I forced it to check the data. Then I resumed the download and it completed some seconds later.) So here's the before and after checksum results. The latter matches the official signature, so I'm happy.

$ md5sum Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD/Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
9ec3c19499df406fbf2539d3966ffd78 Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD/Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
$ md5sum Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD/Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso
8e4fed8ad28e47d5abc7a467bbf9c80f Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD/Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso

I haven't used torrents for ages. I will bedoing so for future ISOs, if available.

Nice tip. Thanks!

Ben

[jkerr82508]

The easy way to check the md5sum:
cd into the directory that the torrent created (it should include a file with the extension .md5) and enter:

Code: Select all

md5sum -c *.md5

after a few minutes it'll report the result

Code: Select all

Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso: OK

The same can be done with sha1sum

Code: Select all

sha1sum -c *.sha1

and it will eventually report

Code: Select all

Mageia-3-beta4-x86_64-DVD.iso: OK

Of course, in either case, it will report an error if the check fails.

Jim

[linuxnovice]

Thanks again Jim.

So even more reason for me to use a torrent - looks like I won't have to separately download the md5sum file or manually compare. I'll get lazier

Ben