man pages section 3: Extended Library Functions, Volume 1

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Updated: July 2014
 
 

md5(3EXT)

Name

md5, md5_calc, MD5Init, MD5Update, MD5Final - MD5 digest functions

Synopsis

cc [ flag ... ] file ... –lmd5 [ library ... ]
#include <md5.h>

void md5_calc(unsigned char *output, unsigned char *input,
     unsigned int inlen);
void MD5Init(MD5_CTX *context);
void MD5Update(MD5_CTX *context, unsigned char *input,
     unsigned int inlen);
void MD5Final(unsigned char *output, MD5_CTX *context);

Description

These functions implement the MD5 message-digest algorithm, which takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit “fingerprint” or “message digest” of the input. It is intended for digital signature applications, where large file must be “compressed” in a secure manner before being encrypted with a private (secret) key under a public-key cryptosystem such as RSA.

md5_calc()

The md5_calc() function computes an MD5 digest on a single message block. The inlen-byte block is pointed to by input, and the 16-byte MD5 digest is written to output.

MD5Init(), MD5Update(), MD5Final()

The MD5Init(), MD5Update(), and MD5Final() functions allow an MD5 digest to be computed over multiple message blocks; between blocks, the state of the MD5 computation is held in an MD5 context structure, allocated by the caller. A complete digest computation consists of one call to MD5Init(), one or more calls to MD5Update(), and one call to MD5Final(), in that order.

The MD5Init() function initializes the MD5 context structure pointed to by context.

The MD5Update() function computes a partial MD5 digest on the inlen-byte message block pointed to by input, and updates the MD5 context structure pointed to by context accordingly.

The MD5Final() function generates the final MD5 digest, using the MD5 context structure pointed to by context; the 16-byte MD5 digest is written to output. After calling MD5Final(), the state of the context structure is undefined; it must be reinitialized with MD5Init() before being used again.

Return Values

These functions do not return a value.

Examples

Example 1 Authenticate a message found in multiple buffers

The following is a sample function that must authenticate a message that is found in multiple buffers. The calling function provides an authentication buffer that will contain the result of the MD5 digest.

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/uio.h>
#include <md5.h>

int
AuthenticateMsg(unsigned char *auth_buffer, struct iovec 
                *messageIov, unsigned int num_buffers)
{
    MD5_CTX md5_context;
    unsigned int i;

    MD5Init(&md5_context);

    for(i=0; i<num_buffers; i++)
    {
         MD5Update(&md5_context, messageIov->iov_base,
                   messageIov->iov_len);
         messageIov += sizeof(struct iovec);
    }

    MD5Final(auth_buffer, &md5_context);

    return 0;
}
Example 2 Use md5_calc() to generate the MD5 digest

Since the buffer to be computed is contiguous, the md5_calc() function can be used to generate the MD5 digest.

int AuthenticateMsg(unsigned char *auth_buffer, unsigned
                    char *buffer, unsigned int length)
{
    md5_calc(buffer, auth_buffer, length);

    return (0);
}

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE
ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability
Committed
MT-Level
MT-Safe

See also

libmd5(3LIB)

Rivest, R., The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm, RFC 1321, April 1992.