Cisco TAR downloads with different BIN MD5 than the standalone file

[adsyparker]

Hi,

The bin file within the TAR for the full language tar is different to the standalone bin file.

What makes it even stranger is the bin file within the English only TAR matches the standalone bin file.

Here is one example (I know its old):

ie4010-universalk9-mz.152-7.E2.bin has MD5 hash 64963d54da5f340149afcb76ac89e3f2

ie4010-universalk9-tar.152-7.E2.tar contains the file ie4010-universalk9-mz.152-7.E2.bin with a hash 682fdc030092138b112c458c4fb09329

ie4010-universalk9_en-tar.152-7.E2.tar contains the file ie4010-universalk9-mz.152-7.E2.bin with a hash 64963d54da5f340149afcb76ac89e3f2

For some reason there is a different binary included with the full language tar.

How are we supposed to do an integrity check if Cisco release different binaries of the same file?

Best Regards,

Adam Parker

[marce1000]

         >...How are we supposed to do an integrity check if Cisco release different binaries of the same file?
  -     It's not directly clear for me what you mean by that , can you also provide the URL's of those
          different binaries.

 M.

[adsyparker]

Hi,

The IOS can be downloaded here in 3 different forms (standalone bin, multi-language tar, English only tar)

https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286307987/type/280805680/release/15.2.7E2?i=!pp

MD5 the standalone bin and then the bin included in the multi-language tar.  They are different files.

MD5 the bin included in the english only tar.  They are the same file.

[Leo Laohoo]

I trust the TAR file because when using the command "archive download-sw", the script will do a quick hash check. 

Regarding the identical MD5 hash with the TAR and BIN file, this is not an isolated case.