cksum Linux command is used to generate checksum value for a file or stream of data. cksum reads files given in its arguments and calculates checksum, if no arguments provided then it reads the standard input.

Syntax

cksum [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Example

$ cksum readme.txt 
2116921653 13 readme.txt

2116921653 13 readme.txt
|          |  |__ file name 
|          |
|          |_____ file size in bytes
|
|________________ Checksum value