How to get an MD5 checksum in PowerShell

Question

I would like to calculate an MD5 checksum of some content. How do I do this in PowerShell?

Answer 1

This is what I use to get a consistent hash value:

function New-CrcTable {
    [uint32]$c = $null
    $crcTable = New-Object 'System.Uint32[]' 256

    for ($n = 0; $n -lt 256; $n++) {
        $c = [uint32]$n
        for ($k = 0; $k -lt 8; $k++) {
            if ($c -band 1) {
                $c = (0xEDB88320 -bxor ($c -shr 1))
            }
            else {
                $c = ($c -shr 1)
            }
        }
        $crcTable[$n] = $c
    }

    Write-Output $crcTable
}

function Update-Crc ([uint32]$crc, [byte[]]$buffer, [int]$length, $crcTable) {
    [uint32]$c = $crc

    for ($n = 0; $n -lt $length; $n++) {
        $c = ($crcTable[($c -bxor $buffer[$n]) -band 0xFF]) -bxor ($c -shr 8)
    }

    Write-Output $c
}

function Get-CRC32 {
    <#
        .SYNOPSIS
            Calculate CRC.
        .DESCRIPTION
            This function calculates the CRC of the input data using the CRC32 algorithm.
        .EXAMPLE
            Get-CRC32 $data
        .EXAMPLE
            $data | Get-CRC32
        .NOTES
            C to PowerShell conversion based on code in https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/#D-CRCAppendix

            Author: Øyvind Kallstad
            Date: 06.02.2017
            Version: 1.0
        .INPUTS
            byte[]
        .OUTPUTS
            uint32
        .LINK
            https://communary.net/
        .LINK
            https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/#D-CRCAppendix

    #>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
        # Array of Bytes to use for CRC calculation
        [Parameter(Position = 0, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [byte[]]$InputObject
    )

    $dataArray = @()
    $crcTable = New-CrcTable
    foreach ($item  in $InputObject) {
        $dataArray += $item
    }
    $inputLength = $dataArray.Length
    Write-Output ((Update-Crc -crc 0xffffffffL -buffer $dataArray -length $inputLength -crcTable $crcTable) -bxor 0xffffffffL)
}

function GetHash() {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param(
        [Parameter(Position = 0, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [string]$InputString
    )

    $bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($InputString)
    $hasCode = Get-CRC32 $bytes
    $hex = "{0:x}" -f $hasCode
    return $hex
}

function Get-FolderHash {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param(
        [Parameter(Position = 0, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [string]$FolderPath
    )

    $FolderContent = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
    Get-ChildItem $FolderPath -Recurse | Where-Object {
        if ([System.IO.File]::Exists($_)) {
            $FolderContent.AddRange([System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($_)) | Out-Null
        }
    }

    $hasCode = Get-CRC32 $FolderContent
    $hex = "{0:x}" -f $hasCode
    return $hex.Substring(0, 8).ToLower()
}

Answer 2

This will return an MD5 hash for a file on a remote computer:

Invoke-Command -ComputerName RemoteComputerName -ScriptBlock {
    $fullPath = Resolve-Path 'c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe'
    $md5 = new-object -TypeName System.Security.Cryptography.MD5CryptoServiceProvider
    $file = [System.IO.File]::OpenRead($fullPath)
    $hash = [System.BitConverter]::ToString($md5.ComputeHash($file))
    $hash -replace "-", ""
    $file.Dispose()
}

Answer 3

Sample for right-click menu option as well:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\SHA1 PS check\command]
@="C:\\Windows\\system32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe -NoExit -Command Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA1 '%1'"

Answer 4

Here is a pretty print example attempting to verify the SHA256 fingerprint. I downloaded gpg4win v3.0.3 using PowerShell v4 (requires Get-FileHash).

Download the package from https://www.gpg4win.org/download.html, open PowerShell, grab the hash from the download page, and run:

cd ${env:USERPROFILE}\Downloads
$file = "gpg4win-3.0.3.exe"

# Set $hash to the hash reference from the download page:
$hash = "477f56212ee60cc74e0c5e5cc526cec52a069abff485c89c2d57d1b4b6a54971"

# If you have an MD5 hash: # $hashAlgo="MD5"
$hashAlgo = "SHA256"

$computed_hash = (Get-FileHash -Algorithm $hashAlgo $file).Hash.ToUpper()
if ($computed_hash.CompareTo($hash.ToUpper()) -eq 0 ) {
    Write-Output "Hash matches for file $file" 
} 
else { 
    Write-Output ("Hash DOES NOT match for file {0}: `nOriginal hash: {1} `nComputed hash: {2}" -f ($file, $hash.ToUpper(), $computed_hash)) 
}

Output:

Hash matches for file gpg4win-3.0.3.exe

Answer 5

If the content is a string:

$someString = "Hello, World!"
$md5 = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.Cryptography.MD5CryptoServiceProvider
$utf8 = New-Object -TypeName System.Text.UTF8Encoding
$hash = [System.BitConverter]::ToString($md5.ComputeHash($utf8.GetBytes($someString)))

If the content is a file:

$someFilePath = "C:\foo.txt"
$md5 = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.Cryptography.MD5CryptoServiceProvider
$hash = [System.BitConverter]::ToString($md5.ComputeHash([System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($someFilePath)))

---

Starting in PowerShell version 4, this is easy to do for files out of the box with the Get-FileHash cmdlet:

Get-FileHash <filepath> -Algorithm MD5

This is certainly preferable since it avoids the problems the first solution offers as identified in the comments (uses a stream, closes it, and supports large files).

Answer 6

There is now a Get-FileHash function which is very handy.

PS C:\> Get-FileHash C:\Users\Andris\Downloads\Contoso8_1_ENT.iso -Algorithm SHA384 | Format-List

Algorithm : SHA384
Hash      : 20AB1C2EE19FC96A7C66E33917D191A24E3CE9DAC99DB7C786ACCE31E559144FEAFC695C58E508E2EBBC9D3C96F21FA3
Path      : C:\Users\Andris\Downloads\Contoso8_1_ENT.iso

Just change SHA384 to MD5.

The example is from the official documentation of PowerShell 5.1. The documentation has more examples.